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**A 


THE 


PROVE    THEIR  SISTERHOOD 


THE  SEVEN  LITTLE  SISTERS  PROVE  THEIR  SISTERHOOD 


EACH  AND  ALL 


A   COMPANION   TO 


THE  SEVEN    LITTLE   SISTERS   WHO   LIVE  ON  THE   ROUND 

BALL   THAT    FLOATS    IN    THE   AIR,"    "TEN    BOYS 

WHO  LIVED  ON  THE  ROAD  FROM  LONG 

AGO  TO  NOW,"  "GEOGRAPHICAL 

PLAYS,"    ETC. 


BY 

JANE    ANDREWS 


BOSTON,  U.S.A. 
GINN    &    COMPANY,    PUBLISHERS 

1894 


Copyright,  1877, 
By  LEE  AND  SHEPARD. 


Copyright,  1885, 
By  LEE  AND  SHEPARD. 


A II  rights  reserved. 


Prove  their  Sisterhood. 


EDUC- 
PSYCH. 
IBRARY 


GIFT 


tctuc  - 

Library 


MARGIE  AND   ANDREWS, 


AND    TO    THE    FOUR    YOUNGEST    MEMBERS    OF    MY    SCHOOL, 


DOSSIE,  EDITH,  DADIE,  AND  GEORGIE, 


I    DEDICATE 


THIS  LITTLE  BOOK. 


072 


CONTENTS. 


PAGB 

The  Story  of  Agoonack,  and  her  Sail  upon 

the  Ice  Island 1 

A  Long  Journey  through  a  Strange  Land  26 
What  was  Gemila  doing  all  this  Time  ?  .  57 
New  Work  for  Pen-se  and  Lin.        .  .91 

Can  the  Little  Brown  Baby  do  any  thing?  .  120 
Chkjstmas-Time  again  for  Louise     .       .       .128 


EACH  AND  ALL. 


THE    STORY    OF    AGOONACK, 

AND    HER   SAIL    UPON    THE    ICE    ISLAND. 

Do  you  remember  Agoonack,  the  lit- 
tle Esquimau  girl  who  lived  through 
the  long  sunshine  and  the  long  dark- 
ness? 

I  have  had  news  of  her  lately.  Do 
you  want  to  know  what  it  is?  Then 
come  with  me  once  more  to  the  cold 
countries,  and  visit  our  old  acquaint- 
ances, the  seals  and  the  bears,  and  the 
chubby  little  girl  and  her  baby  brother. 

It  is  an  April  day.  If  we  were  at 
home,  we  should  perhaps  hear  a  blue- 
Dird  sing.    There  would  be  swelling  leaf- 


2  BACH   AND   ALL. 

buds  on  the  lilac  and  the  horse-chestnut 
trees,  and  little  green  tufts  of  grass 
pushing  up  here  and  there  in  sunny 
spots ;  and  out  in  the  pine  woods  I  am 
sure  we  should  find  May-flowers.  But 
in  the  far-away  cold  countries  there  are 
no  such  pleasant  signs  of  spring;  and 
yet  there  are  some  things  that  are  very 
cheering  to  the  people  who  live  there 
Best  of  all,  there  is  the  sun,  that  hafc 
come  back  again  after  the  long  night, 
and  gives  them  now  a  short  day,  just  a 
few  hours  long.  Then  Puseymut  the 
seal,  who  knows  that  the  spring  is  com 
ing,  has  begun  to  build  her  curious 
house.  And  about  these  seal-houses  1 
must  tell  you;  for  they  are  almost  sa 
curious  and  pretty  as  a  bird's  nest. 

You  know  the  seals  live  in  the  water 
And  here  the  water  is  all  covered  with 
ice,  —  ice  as  thick  as  you  are  tall,  little 
Edith,  and  in  some  places  very  much 
thicker.  And  on  the  top  of  the  ice 
there  is  deep,  deep  snow.  Now,  of  what 
can  the  seal  build  her  house  ? 


THE    STORY    OF    AGOONACK.  3 

Ah !  you  merry  children  who  build 
snow-houses  in  winter  know  very  well 
of  what  it  is  built.      See,  I  will  make 


you  a  picture  of  it,  and  the  mother  seal 
swimming  in  the  clear  water  just  below. 
Here  is  the  passage-way  or  entry,  cut 
through  the  clear,  hard  ice.     To  make 


4  BACH  AND   ALL. 

that  was  difficult  work  for  the  mother 
seal ;  but  she  did  it  all  herself.  See  what 
a  little  doorway  leads  into  the  pretty 
arched  room  above,  —  a  room  whose 
walls  are  of  snow.  It  is  shaped  just  like 
an  Esquimau  house.  Indeed,  I  have 
sometimes  thought  that  the  Esquimaux 
learned  of  the  seals  how  to  make  their 
houses.  It  is  hardly  big  enough,  you 
will  say,  for  the  mother  seal  to  live  in. 
No :  she  didn't  build  it  for  herself.  She 
can  swim  about  wherever  she  likes, 
come  up  to  some  little  hole  in  the  ice 
for  an  occasional  breath  of  fresh  air, 
creep  out  and  sun  herself  if  the  day  is 
warm;  and,  in  short,  she  doesn't  seem 
to  need  a  house  for  herself. 

For  whom,  then,  is  the  little  house  ? 
Georgie  thinks  it  must  be  for  her  baby. 
And  Georgie  is  right ;  for  in  that  pretty 
round  house  lies  a  little  white  baby  seal, 
with  soft  hazel  eyes,  and  tiny  little  flip- 
pers hardly  big  enough  to  swim  with  as 
yet.     And  she  lies  there  so  snugly  while 


THE    STORY    OF    AGOONAOK.  0 

the  mother  goes  away  for  food ;  and  she 
gives  a  little  call  of  welcome  when  she 
hears  her  coming  up  the  ice-entry  that 
leads  to  the  door. 

On  this  April  day,  Agoonack  has  on 
her  bear-skin  jumper  and  hood,  and  runs 
out  on  the  snow  beside  her  father,  who 
carries  his  long  spear  in  his  hand.  The 
sun  is  up,  and  sends  level  rays  across 
the  ice,  and  makes  the  little  girl  think 
of  warmth,  although,  if  she  had  a  ther- 
mometer, she  would  see  that  it  stands 
at  -30° ;  and  that  is  colder  than  you 
have  ever  known  it  to  be.  She  trots 
briskly  along  beside  her  father,  until 
with  a  sudden  "  Hush ! "  and  touch  of 
his  hand  on  her  shoulder,  he  stops  the 
child  in  the  shelter  of  a  great  iceberg, 
and,  running  swiftly  forward,  with  a  sud- 
den jump  he  breaks  through  the  snow- 
crust,  and  has  come  crashing  down  into 
the  pretty  seal  igloe,  and  seized  the  baby 
seal.  The  poor  little  thing  is  so  taken  by 
surprise,  that  it  can  only  utter  a  plaintive 


6  EACH   AND   ALL. 

cry,  which  the  mother  —  swimming  off 
in  the  clear  water  under  the  ice  — 
hears  instantly ;  and  she  hastens,  as  any 
mother  would,  to  help  her  poor  child. 

Metek  knows  she  will  come :  he  is 
ready.  Her  smooth,  round  head,  and 
mild  eyes,  have  scarcely  appeared  above 
the  ice,  when  she  is  struck  by  his  spear, 
and  drawn  out  through  the  hole.  And 
now  she  will  furnish  meat  for  dinner,  oil 
for  the  lamp,  and  boots  for  the  men. 

I  think  you  wouldn't  like  to  see  all 
this :  it  would  be  too  painful.  But 
Agoonack  is  used  to  it ;  and  she  knows 
besides,  that,  if  they  catch  no  seals,  they 
will  have  nothing  to  eat.  And  hunger 
is  to  her  as  painful  as  is  death  to  this 
poor  seal. 

Do  you  remember  where  her  father 
stopped  her  while  he  ran  forward  to  the 
seal igloe  ? 

It  was  in  the  shelter  of  an  iceberg ; 
wasn't  it,  Dossie  ? 

Now,   if  he    had    known    something 


THE    STORY    OF    AGOONACK.  7 

about  the  iceberg,  I  am  sure  he  would 
never  have  left  his  little  daughter  there 
alone  ;  indeed,  I  think  he  wouldn't  have 
liked  to  stop  there  very  long  himself. 
Creep  with  me  round  to  the  other  side 
of  the  berg,  and  up  the  slippery  slope  a 
little  way.  Here  is  a  narrow  opening  in 
the  ice.  It  is  like  the  mouth  of  a  little 
cave.  Look  in  and  see  the  beautiful 
clear  blue  ice-walls  of  this  crystal  room. 
If  we  had  come  an  hour  ago,  I  believe 
you  would  have  been  ready  to  turn  and 
run  quickly  away,  without  stopping  to 
see  that  this  is  Mother  Bruin's  nursery, 
and  she  and  her  two  children  were  at 
play  in  it. 

"  But  who  is  Mother  Bruin  ?  " 
Why,  don't  you  know  ?  she  is  the  great 
white  bear;  Nannookj  as  Agoonack  calls 
her.  And,  although  she  would  be  a  very 
surly  creature  if  we  should  meet  her  on 
the  ice,  at  home  here  in  the  crystal  nur- 
sery she  plays  with  the  two  cubs,  rolls 
them  over  with  her  paw,  pats  them,  and 


8  EACH    AND    ALL. 

cuddles  and  hugs  them  as  tenderly  in  her 
rough  way  as  your  mother  does  you. 
And  sometimes  she  takes  them  out 
sliding  down  the  steep  snow-hills,  sitting 
on  their  hind -legs,  and  steering  down, 
after  a  good  coasting  -  place  has  been 
worn  by  their  mamma.  You  see,  they 
have  their  little  family  pleasures.  I 
wish  we  might  be  friends  with  them ; 
but,  unfortunately,  they  know  very  well 
that  Metek  would  rejoice  to  have  their 
flesh  for  meat,  and  their  warm,  shaggy 
skins  for  clothes :  so  they  return  the 
compliment,  and  kill  him  if  they  can. 
And  now  you  see  why  he  wouldn't  have 
left  Agoonack  there  if  he  had  known. 
But,  fortunately  for  the  child,  Mamma 
Bruin  had  taken  little  Hugger  and 
Growler  out  for  a  walk  just  at  that 
time ;  and  she  did  not  return  until  the 
child  and  her  father  were  safe  at  home, 
and  drinking  seal's-blood  soup  for  supper. 
They  have  company,  too,  at  supper 
to  night ;    not   that   it  is  at  all  surpris- 


THE    STORY    OF    AGOONACK.  9 

ing  for  them  to  have  company,  for  any 
hunter  who  has  killed  a  seal  never  keeps 
it  all  to  himself,  but  is  always  kind 
enough  to  invite  his  neighbors  to  share 
his  feast.  But  to-night  they  have  a  rare 
and  wonderful  visitor  :  Kudlunah,  Metek 
calls  him ;  and,  if  we  knew  the  Esqui- 
mau language,  we  should  understand 
that  this  queer  word  means  "  white 
man." 

Never  has  Agoonack  or  little  Sipsu 
seen  such  a  man.  His  cheeks  are  red, 
his  eyes  are  bright,  and  he  has  a  curly 
beard:  his  voice  is  very  pleasant,  and 
he  can  speak  a  few  words  of  their  own 
language.  And  out  of  his  pockets  come 
treasures  such  as  the  little  ones  have 
never  dreamed  of.  The  shy  little  girl 
can  hardly  look  up,  and  say  "  Thank 
you/'  when  he  puts  a  string  of  bright 
beads  round  her  neck;  and  her  father 
grunts  out  his  satisfaction  over  a  knife, 
the  best  thing  to  cut  with  that  he  ever 
saw  in  his  life. 


10  EACH   AND    ALL 

But  where  did  this  white  man  come 
from  ?  Ah,  yes !  that  is  the  greatest 
wonder,  after  all ;  for  he  points  far  away 
to  the  south  to  show  where  his  home  is, 
and  he  says  "  oomiak  "  (ship),  when  they 
wonder  how  he  came  so  far.  To-night 
he  will  sleep  in  their  hut ;  and  to-mor- 
row, if  they  will  go  with  him,  he  will 
show  them  his  great  oomiak.  And  so, 
when  the  seal  feast  is  finished,  and  the 
Kudlunah,  as  well  as  the  rest,  has  drunk 
his  bowl  of  seal-blood  soup,  they  lie 
down  together. 

In  the  morning  Metek  goes  with  the 
stranger ;  but  the  others  stay  at  home, 
doubting  whether  it  can  be  perfectly 
safe  to  trust  themselves  in  such  com- 
pany upon  so  short  an  acquaintance. 
But  Agoonack  thinks  all  day  of  the 
wonderful  Kudlunah,  and  she  plays  with 
her  pretty  beads,  and  says  over  and  over 
again  softly  to  herself,  "  Koyenna,  koy- 
enna "  (thanks,  thanks).  And  she  is 
the  first  one  to  see  her  father,  far  in  the 


THE   STORY    OF    AGOONACK.  11 

distance,  a  black  speck  on  the  moonlit 
snow,  as  he  trudges  homeward  with  his 
hands  full  of  presents,  and  his  head  full 
of  strange  and  marvellous  news. 

You  know  it  doesn't  make  much  dif- 
ference to  the  Esquimaux  whether  they 
sit  up  late  or  not,  for  the  sunrise  could 
hardly  be  called  the  beginning  of  day  at 
any  time  of  year ;  and,  sleep  as  late  as 
they  might  in  the  morning,  nobody 
would  cry,  "  What  a  shame  that  the  sun 
should  find  you  in  bed  !  " 

So  this  evening,  even  little  Sipsu  cud- 
dles forgotten  behind  his  mother,  and 
listens  with  wide-open  mouth  and  eyes  to 
the  story  of  the  great  oomiak,  built  all 
of  wood,  —  wood  which  you  remember 
is  so  precious  in  the  Esquimau  land, — 
and  as  big  as  a  hundred  kyaks.  It  is 
filled  with  pale-faced,  shaggy-bearded 
Kudlunahs,  plenty  of  knives,  and,  better 
,  than  that,  strange  weapons,  stronger  than 
spears,  for  out  of  them  flashes  fire,  and 
a  seal  will  be  struck  dead  with  the  terri- 
ble noise  that  follows  that  flash. 


12  EACH    AND    ALL. 

Oh,  that  was  a  marvellous  story! 
Agoonack  could  hardly  believe  it;  but 
she  learned  by  and  by  to  be  very  famil- 
iar with  the  guns  and  pistols,  and  very 
thankful  for  them  too.  You  will  see 
pretty  soon  how  that  came  about ;  for 
before  a  week  has  passed,  even  the  little 
girl  herself  has  been  on  board  the  great 
oomiak,  and  tasted  the  Kudlunah's  food, 
a  ship-biscuit,  as  strange  and  unknown 
to  her  as  seal's-blood  soup  to  you.  Think 
how  funny  it  would  be  to  taste  for  the 
first  time  bread  or  cracker ! 

The  child's  mother,  too,  is  made  very 
happy  when  she  receives  needles  and 
thread  (so  much  better  than  her  bone 
needles  and  seal-sinews)  and  a  good  p^ir 
of  scissors,  as  payment  for  the  bag  of 
eider-down  that  she  gathered  last  sum- 
mer when  the  ducks  came  to  make  their 
nests  among  the  rocks.  The  exchange 
of  these  things  as  presents,  or  in  trade, 
shows  them  that  the  white  men  and  the 
Esquimaux   can  serve    each   other,  and 


THE    STORY    OF    AGOONACK.  13 

awakens  a  very  friendly  feeling  between 
them  ;  and,  when  Metek  kills  a  seal  or  a 
bear,  the  white  captain  is  always  welcome 
at  the  feast. 

When  two  or  three  months  have 
passed,  the  Kudlunahs  are  going  away. 
They  have  only  stopped  for  a  little  while 
to  search  along  the  rocky  shores  for 
traces  of  some  lost  friends  of  theirs  who 
sailed  that  way  many  years  ago  ;  and, 
finding  none  here,  they  will  push  on 
through  the  icy  seas,  hoping  for  better 
success  farther  north. 

One  day  just  before  they  started,  Me- 
tek was  called  down  into  the  cabin  of  the 
ship  to  see  the  captain ;  and  when  he 
came  up  it  was  with  a  smile  on  his  broad 
face,  and  a  look  of  great  importance 
which  made  him  hold  his  head  very  high. 
What  had  the  captain  been  saying  to 
him? 

"  Metek,"  he  said,  "  you  are  a  good 
hunter.  Will  you  go  with  us  on  this 
voyage  to  kill  seals  and  walruses  for  us  ? 


14  EACH   AND    ALL. 

I  will  teach  you  to  shoot,  and  give  you 
a  rifle ;  and  you  shall  be  paid  with  knives, 
guns,  powder,  and  shot." 

Then  Metek  answered, "  I  will  go  with 
the  great  captain,  but  I  cannot  leave  my 
wife  and  children  behind.  How  could 
they  live  alone  ?  They  cannot  hunt :  they 
would  die  of  hunger." 

Then  the  captain  sat  silent  and 
thoughtful  for  a  minute  or  two  ;  and  at 
last,  seeing  that  what  Metek  had  spoken 
was  plainly  true,  he  answered,  "Bring 
your  wife  and  children  with  you."  It 
was  this  that  made  Metek  so  proud  and 
happy ;  and  he  hurried  home  with  his 
news. 

Ah  !  now  they  must  break  up  house- 
keeping ;  but  that  is  an  easy  thing,  ea- 
sier even  than  for  Gemila  in  the  desert, 
for  her  father  had  mats  and  tents,  and 
camels  and  goats,  and  water-bags  :  but 
Metek' s  family  had  nothing  at  all  to 
carry,  except  a  seal-skin  drinking-cup,  a 
knife  or  two,  the  precious  new  sewing- 


THE    STORY    OF    AGOONACK.  15 

utensils,  some  strings  of  beads,  the 
clothes  they  wear,  and  one  additional 
suit  for  summer  which  the  mother  has 
just  sewed  out  of  tuktoo  or  reindeer  skin. 
So  it  is  a  very  easy  matter  to  make  the 
change  ;  and  the  berth  of  the  ship  is  a 
luxurious  bed  for  Sipsu  and  Agoonack. 

I  can't  tell  you  all  the  wonderful  things 
that  happened  for  the  next  few  months, 
while  the  great  oomiak,  after  pushing 
through  the  icy  sea  as  far  as  it  could  go, 
was  at  last  frozen  fast  among  the  great 
ice-floes ;  or  how  Metek  learned  so  well 
to  shoot  the  seals  and  the  bears,  and 
provide  fresh  meat  for  the  whole  ship's 
company. 

But  we  are  coming  to  a  very  impor- 
tant time,  —  a  time  when  the  ice  begins 
to  break  up,  and,  tossed  by  the  rising  and 
falling  tides,  it  crowds  and  crushes  the 
strong  ship.  And  at  last  one  night,  dark 
and  very  stormy  too,  while  the  children 
who  are  so  used  to  the  thumping  and 
tossing,  are  asleep  rolled  up  in  bear-skins, 


16  EACH    AND    ALL. 

a  great  shout  is  heard  through  the  storm : 
the  ship  is  leaking  badly,  and  they  must 
throw  out  upon  the  ice  as  many  things 
as  possible. 

The  barrels  and  casks,  the  bundles  of 
skins,  and  heavy  boats,  are  soon  upon  the 
floe ;  and  in  the  hurry  and  confusion 
somebody  picks  up  the  roll  of  skins  in 
which  the  children  are  sleeping,  and  they 
are  tossed  out  like  any  other  bundle. 

When  at  last  the  dim  morning  dawns, 
behold,  the  ship  has  drifted  away,  and  left 
upon  the  great  cake  of  floating  ice  a  par- 
ty of  fifteen  men,  besides  Metek  and  his 
wife  and  the  two  little  children  who  have 
crept  out  of  their  nest  of  skins,  and  are 
neither  surprised  nor  frightened  at  find- 
ing themselves  in  this  strange  position. 

Think  of  it,  children.  How  would  you 
like  it?  —  a  great  cake  of  ice  two  or 
three  miles  broad,  almost  like  a  floating 
island.  When  the  days  are  warm  enough 
to  thaw  a  little,  it  moves  with  the  moving 
water,  and  freezes  hard  to  the  land  or  the 
iceberers  when  a  cold  snap  comes 


THE    STORY    OF   AGOONACK.  17 

I  believe  you  and  I  should  be  very 
much  troubled  about  it,  and  I  dare  say 
the  captain  felt  very  anxious ;  but  he  did 
not  say  so :  he  tried  to  be  cheerful  and 
hopeful,  and  plan  what  to  do. 

In  some  ways  it  is  not  so  bad,  you  see  ; 
because  if  they  are  floating  in  the  water 
they  will  meet  both  seals  and  walruses, 
and  can  get  something  to  eat.  And 
there  is  another  good  thing  to  remember : 
they  are  drifting  always  southward,  and 
that  takes  them  towards  warmer  seas, 
towards  home,  at  least  towards  the  Kud- 
lunah's  home.  But  the  way  is  long,  and 
the  ice-boat  may  not  sail  always  steadily 
on  as  they  would  like.  You  know  they 
cannot  steer  it  as  men  do  a  ship,  or  even 
as  you  do  your  sled.  They  must  patient- 
ly let  it  take  its  own  way  and  its  own 
time ;  and  what  are  they  to  do  for  shel- 
ter and  for  fire,  even  if  food  is  plenty  ? 

I  think  the  Kudlunahs  would  have 
been  poorly  off,  although  they  are  so 
wise,  if  it    hadn't    been   for   Esquimau 


18  EACH    AND    ALL. 

Metek  then.  See  how  he  goes  promptly 
to  work  to  build  snow-houses,  igloes  he 
calls  them.  The  ice  floor  is  cold,  to  be 
sure,  and  the  platform  of  ice  raised  at 
one  side  for  a  bed  seems  colder  still  when 
you  lie  down ;  but  there  are  two  old  can- 
vas sails  that  will  serve  for  carpets ;  and 
in  a  few  hours  the  arched  snow  walls  are 
finished,  so  high  in  the  middle  that  the 
captain  himself  can  stand  upright;  and 
a  window  one  foot  square  of  clear  ice  lets 
in  light  enough  to  see  each  other  by, 
even  when  the  seal-blubber  lamp  is  not 
burning.  There  is  a  home  for  them,  and 
a  pretty  comfortable  home  too,  they 
think.  But  it  is  now  the  middle  of  Octo- 
ber, and  winter  is  coming.  To  be  sure, 
they  have  casks  of  pemican  and  some 
barrels  of  biscuits ;  but  it  takes  a  great 
deal  of  food  to  feed  nineteen  hungry 
people  every  day,  and  in  the  cold  coun- 
tries you  have  to  eat  a  great  deal  more 
than  we  do  here;  for  food,  as  you  will 
one  day  learn,  is  like  fuel  for  a  little  fire 


THE    STORY    OF    AGOONACK.  19 

inside  of  you  that  keeps  you  warm,  and, 
the  colder  the  weather  is,  the  more  of 
that  fuel  is  needed  to  keep  the  fire  burn- 
ing. 

Metek  must  hunt  every  day  for  seals. 
Unfortunately  it  is  just  the  time  when 
the  bears  are  taking  their  long  nap  ;  for 
you  must  know  that  they  are  very  lazy 
fellows  in  the  winter,  and  creep  away  to 
some  snug  hiding-place  where  they  doze 
and  dream  until  early  spring.  It  wouldn't 
be  easy  to  find  that  hiding-place :  so  they 
can't  expect  much  bear's  meat. 

There  is  another  reason  why  they 
dread  the  winter.  Who  can  tell  me 
what  it  is  ? 

"  It  must  be  the  darkness,"  says  Da- 
die.  You  are  right,  my  little  boy :  that 
is  what  they  dread,  and  what  you  and  I 
should  dread  too,  —  not  to  see  the  sun 
day  after  day,  and  week  after  week,  per- 
haps not  even  to  see  each  other's  faces. 

"  But  why  don't  they  light  their 
lamps  ?  "  says  Edith.     Ah !  there  may  be 


20  EACH    AND    ALL. 

a  sad  reason  for  not  doing  that.  Don't 
you  remember  that  if  no  seals  are  killed 
there  will  be  no  oil  for  the  lamps  ? 

I  cannot  tell  you  all  about  it :  the  sto- 
ry is  too  long  and  too  sad.  You  see 
what  the  dangers  are ;  but  neither  you 
nor  I  who  live  so  safely  at  home  in  our 
warm  houses,  and  find  a  good  dinner  on 
our  tables  every  day,  can  really  under- 
stand how  hard  it  was  for  them.  There 
were  days  of  no  light,  no  dinner,  no  com- 
fort of  any  kind.  There  were  nights 
when  the  ice-island  cracked  in  two,  and 
one-half  drifted  away  before  morning. 
There  were  times  when  the  children 
moaned,  "  I  am  so  hungry,"  and  their 
mother  gave  them  a  little  piece  of  seal- 
skin to  chew  to  make  believe  it  was 
meat. 

Among  the  Kudlunahs  was  one  who 
had  blue  eyes  and  fair  hair,  and  who 
spoke  sometimes  in  a  language  strange 
even  to  his  companions.  He  had  come 
from  the  river  Ehine.     Do  you  remem 


THE    STORY    OF    AGOONACK.  21 

ber  Louise  and  Fritz  and  little  Gretchen, 
who  once  lived  there  ? 

This  man  had  a  wise  way  of  looking 
at  the  stars,  and  rinding  out  by  them  in 
what  direction  the  ice-island  was  drifting. 
He  could  also  tell  you  wonderful  things 
about  icebergs,  and  about  birds  and 
beasts,  and  fishes  too  :  in  short,  he  was 
what  we  should  call  a  scientific  man,  but 
that  hard  word  didn't  puzzle  Agoonack 
as  it  does  you,  for  she  never  heard  it ; 
her  only  knowledge  of  Mr.  Meyer  is  his 
kindness  to  her  when  he  one  day  slips  a 
bit  of  meat  into  her  thin  little  hand,  and 
says,  "  My  little  cousin  at  home  is  no 
bigger  than  you,  you  poor  child.' ' 

At  last  there  was  a  time  when  the  sun 
came  back.  Oh,  how  glad  they  all  were  ! 
but  even  that  blessing  seemed  to  bring  a 
fresh  trouble  with  "i;  for  they  had  floated 
now  into  warmer  seas,  and  you  all  know 
what  the  sunshine  will  do  to  the  ice  and 
snow.  It  is  very  well  that  they  should 
be  melted,  we  say ;  but  then,  we  don't 


22  EACH   AND   ALL. 

happen  to  live  on  an  ice  island  and  in  a 
snow  house. 

By  and  by  the  time  comes  when  it  is 
no  longer  safe  to  sleep  in  the  snow 
houses  :  cold  as  the  nights  are,  they  must 
be  ready  at  any  minute  to  leap  into  the 
boat,  should  the  now  tiny  island  crack  in 
two.  And  the  poor  boat  is  neither  large 
nor  strong. 

They  have  drifted  now  so  far  south- 
ward that  the  ice  is  breaking  up  all 
about  them,  and,  happily  for  them,  the 
seals  are  sporting  in  the  spring  sunshine. 

It  is  the  last  day  of  April.  To-mor- 
row will  be  May  Day.  You  will  have 
May  fairs,  May  parties,  May  flowers. 
What  pleasure  will  come  to  these  poor 
people  drifting  in  the  icy  seas  ? 

Oh!  it  is  something  better  than  May 
fairs  or  parties  or  even  flowers.  They 
see  the  long  black  line  of  smoke  made 
by  a  steamer,  miles  away,  but  coming 
on  slowly,  steadily,  through  the  ice,  to 
find   them.     Isn't   that   the   very,  very 


THE    STORY    OF    AGOONACK.  23 

best  blessing  for  them?  and  aren't  you 
very,  very  glad  ?  I  am  sure  that  I  am. 
Oh  the  comfort,  the  rest,  and  the 
safety !  And  the  way  that  sturdy  little 
steamer  puffs  and  steams  away  towards 
home,  wTith  her  load  of  weary,  thin, 
worn-out  men !  Towards  home,  did  I 
say  ?  but  haven't  they  drifted  far  beyond 
Agoonack's  home,  and  now  aren't  they 
going  still  farther  from  it  ?  That  is  true. 
And,  after  the  first  relief  of  finding  them- 
selves safe  is  over,  Metek  goes  to  the 
Nalegak  Soak  (great  captain),  and  asks 
how  he  is  ever  to  reach  his  home  again. 
And  the  captain  comforts  him  with  the 
promise,  that,  when  they  reach  the 
United  States,  he  shall  be  sent  safely 
back  in  the  first  ship  that  goes  up  to  the 
frozen  seas  for  whale  -  fishing  ;  and  in 
the  mean  time  he  and  his  wife  and  chil- 
dren will  see  a  new  sight,  —  whole  cities 
full  of  tall  houses  built  of  stone  or  wood, 
railroads  and  factories,  and,  indeed,  more 
Wonders  than  *hey  can  name. 


24  EACH    AND   ALL. 

But  all  this  while  they  are  steaming 
steadily  on.  They  have  left  the  ice- 
bergs far  behind  them ;  grassy  shores 
are  sometimes  seen  in  the  distance ;  the 
sun  is  so  hot  at  noon  that  the  fur  cloth- 
ing is  uncomfortable.,  but  unhappily  they 
have  no  other. 

At  last  comes  a  day  when  they  cast 
anchor  at  a  crowded  wharf.  The  news 
of  their  rescue  had  been  sent  before 
them,  and  friends  have  crowded  down 
to  welcome  them  home  again. 

Oh,  there  is  such  a  hand-shaking  and 
kissing !  Everybody  forgets  Agoonack 
and  Sipsu,  who  do  not  know  what  to 
make  of  all  the  happy  greetings.  At 
least,  they  can  understand  how  glad  the 
people  are :  that  is  something  that  can 
be  told  alike  in  all  languages.  But  it 
makes  them  feel  all  the  more  lonely;  for 
nobody  is  glad  to  see  them. 

But  what  little  blue-eyed  girl  has  her 
arms  about  Mr.  Meyer's  neck?  Now 
see,  he  is  leading  her  by  the  hand,  and 


THE   STORY    OF    AGOONACK.  25 

looking  on  this  side  and  on  that  until  he 
spies  the  little  Esquimau  girl  in  her 
corner.  He  puts  the  soft  white  hand 
into  the  little  brown  one,  and  says, 
"  Louise,  this  is  Agoonack,  the  little  girl 
who  has  drifted  with  us  fifteen  hundred 
miles  on  the  ice." 

Louise,  the  fair-faced,  sweet,  clean  lit- 
tle girl ;  Agoonack,  the  dark  and  dirty, 
yes,  still  dirty,  little  Esquimau,  the  lone- 
ly little  stranger  in  a  strange  land. 

Louise  looks  her  full  in  the  face  for 
one  minute :  then  her  arms  are  round 
Agoonack's  neck,  and  her  red  lips  are 
giving  her  a  hearty  kiss  of  welcome. 

They  are  little  sisters,  after  all. 


A  LONG  JOURNEY  THROUGH   A 
STRANGE   LAND. 

Who  is  this  little  girl  sitting  on  the 
sand-bank  in  the  broad  valley  where  a 
few  months  ago  a  swift  river  ran  ? 

Let  us  see  what  she  is  doing,  and  then 
perhaps  you  will  know  who  she  is. 

She  has  brought  a  bundle  of  tall  reeds 
from  the  bank,  and  laid  them  beside  her; 
and  now  notice  how,  with  her  flat  palm, 
she  smooths  a  broad  place  on  the  sand, 
and  begins  to  drive  in  the  reeds  like 
posts  close  together,  and  in  a  circle. 
Isn't  it  going  to  be  a  little  garden,  with 
a  fence  all  round  it  ?  Watch  a  minuce 
longer :  she  is  plastering  her  wall  with 
damp  clay ;  and  while  that  dries,  she  has 
carefully  measured  off  a  bundle  of  broad, 
stiff  leaves,  tied  them  firmly  together  at 

26 


A   LONG   JOURNEY. 


27 


one  end,  and  with  her  strong  fingers 
pulled  them  wide  apart  at  the  other  so 
that  they  look  like  an  open  umbrella. 

Do  you  know  what  that  is  for  ?  It  is 
a  roof,  to  be  sure.  And  now  she  puts  it 
carefully  on  top  of  the  circular  wall,  and 
then  she  has  a  pretty  little  round  house 
with  a  pointed  roof;  and  you  notice  she 
left  a  doorway  in  the  first  place. 

"  Why,  it  is  Manenko !  "  says  Dossie. 

Yes,  it  is  Manenko,  the  little  dark 
girl  who  lived  in  the  sunshine.  She  is 
building  a  play-house  for  herself;  and 
you  might  build  one  like  it  next  sum- 
mer, I  think,  if  you  should  try. 

You  knew  her  by  the  kind  of  house-, 
didn't  you  ?  And  you  would  have  re- 
membered her  in  a  minute  more,  when 
I  had  told  you  that  her  little  brother 
Shobo  is  sitting  beside  her,  trying  to 
make  a  tiny  spear  with  a  sharp  barbed 
end,  out  of  one  of  her  best  reeds. 

A  great  trouble  has  come  to  Manenko's 
country  since  you  first  knew  her.     You 


28  EACH    AND    ALL. 

remember  the  broad  river  where  the  hip- 
popotamus used  to  sleep  under  the  water, 
and  where  the  men  used  to  come  down 
in  a  canoe  loaded  with  elephants'  tusks. 
That  beautiful,  cool,  swift-flowing  river 
has  dried  up ;  and  our  little  Manenko  is 
at  this  moment  building  her  play-house 
in  the  very  place  where  the  waves  used 
to  dance  along  over  the  sandy  bottom. 

But  why  is  this  a  great  trouble  ?  I  will 
answer  this  question  by  asking  you  an- 
other. Who  can  live  without  water  to 
drink?  And  the  simple  round  houses 
have  no  water-pipes,  and  the  one  well  of 
the  village  is  already  almost  dry.  The 
women  are  holding  up  their  hands  to  the 
sky,  and  crying,  "  Poola,  poola !  "  (rain, 
rain) ;  but  the  sky  is  blue  and  clear,  and 
not  the  smallest  fleecy  cloud  answers 
their  call ;  and  the  men  have  gone  to  the 
next  village  to  ask  the  old  medicine- 
man to  come  and  make  rain  for  them, 
which  you  and  I  know  very  well  he  will 
not  be  able  to  do.  So  this  is  really  a 
serious  trouble,  isn't  it  ? 


A   LONG   JOURNEY.  29 

Sekomi  has  been  thoughtful  for  many 
days.  He  has  watched  the  sky,  he  has 
looked  sadly  at  the  dry  bed  of  the  river ; 
and  now  a  morning  has  come  when  there 
seems  no  longer  any  hope,  and  he  says, 
"  Where  shall  we  drink  water  to-night  ?  " 

But  Maunka,  the  good  mother,  is  more 
cheerful.  "  Let  us  go  to  the  mountain 
country,"  she  says.  "Do  you  not  see 
that  the  river  once  ran  down  to  us  from 
the  mountains  ?  There  we  stall  find 
springs  and  wells,  build  a  new  house,  and 
live  as  happily  as  we  have  here." 

I  am  sure,  dear  children,  that  you  will 
think  this  good  advice ;  for  you  all  know 
that  the  rivers  come  from  the  mountain 
springs. 

And  so  this  whole  family  prepared  to 
go  on  a  long  journey  through  a  strange 
land. 

Perhaps  some  of  you  know  what  it  is 
to  move.  We  moved  once  when  I  was  a 
little  girl ;  and  there  were  great  wagons 
to  carry  the  furniture,  and  men  to  load 


30  EACH   AND   ALL. 

and  unload  them.     It  was  a  long  and 
wearisome  business,  I  assure  you. 

Now  we  will  see  how  Manenko's  fami- 
ly move.  There  are  no  horses  and  wag- 
ons to  carry  any  thing ;  but  they  march 
on  foot,  single  file,  and  carry  all  the  bag- 
gage themselves.  First  the  father  with 
his  spear  and  shield,  bow  and  arrows, 
slung  over  his  shoulders.  Then  Zungo, 
the  oldest  son :  he,  too,  carries  bow  and 
spear,  and  also  a  load  of  sleeping-mats 
tied  together  with  rope  made  of  palm- 
fibre.  Then  follows  the  mother.  I  hope 
some  good  children  are  carrying  all  her 
bundles  for  her.  But  no  :  see,  she  has 
the  heaviest  load  of  all.  On  her  head  is 
the  water-jar ;  over  her  shoulders  all  the 
family  clothing  and  cooking-utensils ;  in 
her  hands  the  baskets,  and  the  short  hoes 
for  hoeing  corn ;  and  more  than  all,  in 
the  loose  folds  of  her  waist-cloth  little 
Shobo  must  ride  when  he  is  tired,  some- 
thing as  Agoonack's  little  brother  Sipsu 
rode  in  his  mother's  jumper-hood. 


A  LONG   JOURNEY.  31 

Why  didn't  Manenko  carry  some  of 
these  things  for  her  mother  ?  Only  look 
at  the  little  girl,  and  you  will  be  able  to 
answer  the  question.  See,  she,  too,  has 
a  little  water-jar  on  her  head  (and  I  think 
she  carries  it  more  safely  than  any  one 
of  you  could  do),  and  a  basket  of  hard 
cakes,  baked  in  the  ashes  of  the  morn- 
ing's fire,  in  her  hand ;  a  smaller  basket 
of  honey  is  slung  over  her  shoulder ;  and 
all  that  is  load  enough  for  a  little  girl. 

If  you  ask  why  Sekomi  and  Zungo  do 
not  carry  more,  I  can  only  answer  that 
I  am  afraid  they  are  not  very  thoughtful 
about  such  things.  However,  nobody 
complains,  least  of  all  the  cheerful  moth- 
er, who  takes  up  her  burdens  without  a 
word  ;  and  they  turn  their  faces  towards 
the  hill-country. 

The  first  day's  march  is  not  so  very 
hard  if  it  were  not  for  that  .thicket  of 
wait-a-bit  thorn  bushes  past  which  the 
path  led  them. 

Did  you  ever  hear  of  the  wait-a-bit 


32  EACH   AND   ALL. 

thorn?  It  tells  its  whole  story  in  its 
name ;  for  the  thorns  are  like  little  fish- 
hooks,  and,  if  once  they  catch  you,  you 
must  needs  wait  a  bit  before  you  can  get 
away.  1  am  glad  they  don't  grow  in  this 
country.  To-day  they  tore  long  slits  in 
Manenko's  little  cotton  skirt,  the  first  and 
only  garment  that  she  ever  had,  and  she 
had  only  worn  it  a  few  weeks ;  you  re- 
member, when  you  knew  her  before,  she 
did  not  wear  clothes.  I  am  sorry  the 
wait-a-bit  has  served  her  so  unkindly,  for 
there  is  no  cloth  to  make  a  new  dress. 

Just  before  sunset  they  find  a  pool  of 
muddy  water,  and  on  its  borders  great 
heavy  foot-marks  where  the  elephants 
have  been  down  to  drink.  This  will  be 
a  good  camping-place,  if  they  keep  out 
of  the  elephants'  path,  for  the  water-jars 
are  empty,  and  here  is  a  new  supply  to 
fill  them  for  to-morrow,  and  also  to  make 
some  porridge  for  supper.  So  the  chil- 
dren gather  sticks  for  a  fire,  and  Sekomi 
selects  a  sheltered  spot  for  the  camp. 


A   LONG    JOURNEY.  33 

But  how  shall  they  light  the  fire  ?  Do 
you  think  Sekomi  has  any  matches  in 
his  pocket  ?  In  the  first  place,  he  hasn't 
any  pocket;  and  in  the  second,  they 
never  heard  of  such  a  thing  as  a  match, 
a  little  stick  with  a  fiery  end :  they 
would  look  at  it  with  wonder.  No, 
there  are  no  matches,  but  Zungo  will 
light  the  fire  nevertheless. 

He  is  looking  about  for  a  wild  fig-tree  ; 
and,  finding  one,  he  cuts  a  smooth  twig, 
sharpens  it  into  a  point,  and  after  wetting 
the  point  rolls  it  in  the  sand  until  some 
of  the  sharp,  shining  bits  stick  to  the 
wet  end.  Now  it  is  all  ready  for  rubbing 
or  twirling  in  the  hollow  of  that  piece 
of  wood  that  he  has  carried  all  day  slung 
to  his  bundle  of  mats.  How  hard  he 
works,  holding  the  pointed  stick  straight 
in  the  hole,  and  twirling  it  hard  between 
his  two  hands,  while  his  mother  waits  be- 
side him  to  catch  the  first  spark  in  a 
wisp  of  dried  grass !  There,  it  is  smok- 
ing, and  now  the  grass  is  smouldering ; 


34  EACH   AND   ALL. 

and  in  a  minute  there  will  be  a  merry 
blaze  under  the  earthen  chattie  where 
the  porridge  is  to  be  cooked. 

But  before  the  porridge  is  well  boiled, 
a  long  train  of  men  and  animals  comes 
crashing  through  the  low  bushes;  and, 
while  the  frightened  family  hides  behind 
a  rock,  Sekomi  comes  doubtfully  forward 
to  see  who  the  intruders  are. 

Two  tall  creatures  with  long  necks, 
great  humps  on  their  backs,  and  loaded 
with  bales  and  bundles  of  goods ;  four 
little  sturdy  animals,  not  wholly  unlike 
zebras  excepting  in  color;  and,  besides 
the  six  men  with  woolly  hair  and  dark 
faces  like  Sekomi' s  own,  two  tall,  grave- 
faced,  straight-haired  men  whom  you 
would  have  known  at  once  for  Arabs,  be- 
cause you  have  heard  about  such  people 
who  lived  in  the  desert  with  Gemila. 
But  the  greatest  wonder  of  all  is  the  man 
who  rides  upon  one  of  the  smaller  ani- 
mals, —  a  white  man !  Sekomi  has  heard 
that  such  men  come  sometimes   to  the 


A   LONG   JOURNEY.  35 

sea-coast,  but  he  never  before  saw  one  ; 
and  so,  while  he  wonders  much  at  the 
camels  and  the  donkeys,  strange  beasts  to 
him,  he  wonders  still  more  at  a  simple 
man  who  is  in  every  outward  way  as  dif- 
ferent from  himself  as  possible.  He  has  a 
white  skin  instead  of  a  dark  one,  straight 
hair  instead  of  wool,  blue  eyes  instead  of 
black,  and  he  wears  instead  of  the  sim- 
ple apron  and  mantle  of  antelope-skin, 
strange  garments  so  well  known  to  us  as 
coat  and  pantaloons.  But  the  words  that 
he  speaks  are  the  most  wonderful ;  and 
yet  Sekomi  knows  by  their  sound  that 
they  are  kind,  although  he  cannot  under- 
stand their  meaning  until  one  of  the 
black  interpreters  hurries  forward  to 
help  about  the  talking. 

Do  you  know  what  an  interpreter  is  ? 

See  what  he  does,  and  then  you  will 
know.  He  listens  to  the  white  man's 
talk,  and  then  he  changes  it  into  Sekomi' s 
language,  and  so  makes  them  understand 
each  other.  Do  you  want  to  hear  what 
the  white  man  says  to  Sekomi  ? 


36  EACH   AND   ALL. 

"We  have  the  same  kind  heavenly 
Father.  Let  us  be  friends  and  like 
brothers." 

But  Sekomi  is  afraid.  He  can  hardly 
believe  it,  and  he  answers,  — 

"  It  cannot  be  so  :  however  much  we 
wash  ourselves,  we  do  not  become  white. 
It  cannot  be  that  I  have  the  same  Father 
as  Bazungu  "  (white  man). 

Then  the  Bazungu  speaks  again  in  his 
kindly  voice,  and  says,  "  It  is  not  the 
skin  that  makes  us  brothers :  it  is  the 
heart." 

And  now  Sekomi  dares  to  come  for- 
ward, and  touch  the  hand  that  is  held  out 
to  him  in  kindness,  and  clap  his  own  as 
an  act  of  politeness.  "  And,  since  we  are 
brothers,  my  wife  will  give  you  por- 
ridge.' ' 

The  Bazungu  is  tired  and  hungry,  and 
the  porridge  is  hot  and  delicious ;  but  be- 
fore eating  it  he  gives  Sekomi  a  piece  of 
bright-colored  cloth  from  one  of  his  bales, 
and  he  also  calls  Maneuko,  and  puts  a 


A   LONG    JOURNEY.  37 

string  of  red  and  blue  beads  round  her 
neck.  The  child  says  timidly,  "  Motota, 
motota"  ("  thanks"),  and  claps  her 
hands  as  her  mother  has  taught  her, 
for  it  would  be  very  bad  manners  not  to 
clap  your  hands  if  any  one  gave  you  a 
present. 

The  white  man  wants  help,  for  one  of 
his  camels  is  sick  and  tired,  and  cannot 
carry  so  great  a  load  ;  and  to-morrow 
morning  the  packages  must  be  divided, 
and  the  men  must  carry  a  part  of  them. 
He  will  be  glad  of  Sekomi's  help,  and 
will  pay  him  one  yard  of  calico  a  day. 
That  is  a  great  price  ;  and  as  Sekomi  was 
going  in  the  same  direction,  he  is  very 
glad  to  earn  so  much  calico  by  carrying 
one  of  the  bales. 

Do  you  wonder  why  he  isn't  paid  in 
money  ?  He  knows  nothing  about  mon- 
ey. In  his  country  cloth  and  ivory  and 
beads  are  used  instead,  and  a  yard  of  cal- 
ico is  as  good  as  a  dollar. 

So  the  bargain  is  made,  and  the  wages 


38  EACH   AND   ALL. 

agreed  upon;  and  then  the  camp-fires 
are  lighted  to  frighten  away  the  lions, 
and  all  lie  down  to  sleep. 

You  would  be  surprised  to  see  this  fire. 
We  all  know  what  a  bright  wood  fire  is ; 
but  what  should  you  think  of  a  fire  of 
ebony,  that  fine  black  wood  of  which  the 
piano-keys  are  made,  and  perhaps  a  stick 
of  mahogany  or  lignum-vitse  added  to 
it  ?  That  is  all  the  wood  they  can  find 
to  burn;  and  although  the  white  man 
knows  that  it  is  fine  enough  to  be  made 
into  beautiful  tables  or  desks  or  pianos, 
the  black  people  think  it  of  no  value 
except  for  their  fires. 

In  the  side  of  the  hill  half  a  mile 
away,  is  a  broad  belt  of  black  rock.  It 
is  coal,  just  such  coal  as  we  burn  in  our 
grate ;  but  when  the  Bazungu  shows  it 
to  his  men,  and  tells  them  that  it  will 
make  a  hot  fire,  they  smile,  and  say, 
"Kodi?"  ("really?")  for  they  don't 
believe  it. 

Very  early  in  the  morning  Manenko 


A   LONG   JOURNEY.  39 

hears  her  mother  rise  quietly,  and  take 
her  grinding-stone,  and  begin  to  grind 
some  corn  into  flour.  *  Mother,  why- 
grind  in  the  dark?  "  asks  the  child. 

"  I  grind  meal  to  buy  a  cloth  from  the 
stranger,  and  make  you  a  little  dress," 
answers  the  mother ;  and  sure  enough, 
when  the  Bazungu  comes  out  of  his  tent 
at  sunrise,  Maunka  stands  waiting  with 
her  basket  of  fresh  meal ;  and  he  gladly 
buys  it,  and  gives  the  cloth.  So  the 
poor  dress  torn  by  the  wait-a-bit  is  re- 
placed. 

They  are  soon  ready  for  the  march. 
Sekomi  now  carries  a  great  bale  of  cloth ; 
and  Zungo,  too,  has  been  employed  to 
attend  to  the  white  man's  fires  when 
they  camp  at  night  For  this  work  he 
is  to  have  a  strange  kind  of  pay, 
stranger  even  than  the  cloth :  it  is  the 
heads  and  necks  of  all  the  animals  that 
the  white  man  may  shoot  on  the  way. 
If  he  should  shoot  a  rhinoceros,  I  think 
there  would  be  meat  enough  in  his  head 


40  EACH    AND    ALL. 

to  last  the  whole  family  several  days; 
but  a  little  antelope's  head  would  be 
only  enough  for  one  dinner.  At  any 
rate,  it  is  a  great  help  to  them  all  to  have 
this  work  and  this  pay  from  the  friendly 
stranger;  and  they  are  ready  to  serve 
him  in  every  way  that  they  can. 

As  they  come  near  a  village,  they 
hear  the  people  shouting,  "  Malonda, 
malonda  !  "  ("  things  for  sale  :  do  you 
want  to  sell  any  thing  ?  ")  and  they  find 
themselves  just  in  time  to  go  to  a  mar- 
ket, which  is  being  held  in  the  middle 
of  the  town. 

Let  us  see  what  they  have  to  sell. 
Here  is  the  blacksmith  who  has  a  forge 
on  the  top  of  yonder  ant-hill.  He  has 
been  making  short-handled  iron  hoes, 
and  will  sell  them  for  cloth  or  for  honey ; 
and  honey  is  very  cheap,  —  a  whole  gal- 
lon for  one  yard  of  cloth. 

See  these  two  nice  girls  with  clean 
hands  and  faces,  and  neat  baskets  full  of 
something  to  eat.     It  looks  very  good, 


A   LONG   JOURNEY.  41 

but  I  am  afraid  you  won't  buy  any 
when  I  tell  you  that  it  is  roasted  white 
ants.  But  I  don't  know  why  we 
shouldn't  find  it  as  agreeable  as  a  kungo- 
cake  that  the  women  who  live  by  the 
lake  have  for  sale ;  for  a  kungo-cake  is  a 
round  flat  cake,  an  inch  thick,  and  as 
large  as  a  breakfast-plate,  made  entirely 
of  boiled  midges  that  are  caught  by  the 
basket-full  as  they  hover  over  the  lake. 

We  will  not  buy  either,  but  will  give 
that  little  naked  girl  a  blue  bead  in  pay- 
ment for  a  cup  of  fresh  water,  and  then 
sit  down  in  the  shade  of  a  wild  fig-tree 
to  watch  the  others.  Zungo  has  sold  a 
spear-head,  and  has  in  return  some  large 
green,  bitter  melons.  They  are  too  bit- 
ter to  be  eaten  raw,  but  will  be  very 
juicy  and  sweet  when  baked  in  the  ashes. 
Sekomi  has  spent  all  his  cloth  for  an 
ornament  of  ivory  shaped  like  a  new 
moon ;  and  he  marches  about  the  town 
with  it  hanging  round  his  ne<:k  with  one 
horn  over  each  shoulder. 


42  EACH   AND    ALL. 

There  is  one  kind  of  food  here  that 
perhaps  we  shall  like.  It  is  a  sort  of 
a  soup  made  out  of  the  blossoms  of  a 
pretty  blue  flowering  pea.  The  people 
call  it  chilobe;  and  when  they  learn  that 
the  white  man  never  saw  it  before,  they 
exclaim,  "  What  a  wretched  country  you 
must  live  in,  if  you  do  not  even  have 
chilobe  !"  But  you  and  I  know  that 
they  haven't  the  least  idea  how  many 
other  good  things  we  have  instead. 

On  one  side  of  the  market-place  stand 
some  men  curiously  marked  on  their 
backs,  shoulders,  and  arms.  They  are 
covered  with  patterns  pricked  into  their 
skins,  —  tattooed  we  should  call  it. 
There  are  crosses,  and  half-moons,  and 
various  other  figures;  and  all  the  men 
of  one  family  have  the  same  sort  of 
mark,  so  that  you  can  tell,  the  minute 
you  see  one  of  them,  whether  he  is  a 
moon-man  or  a  cross-man.  They  have 
brought  salt  to  sell ;  for  they  live  in  a 
place  where  the  very  earth  tastes  saltj 


A   LONG   JOURNEY.  43 

and  if  you  take  some  of  it,  and  wash  it 
carefully,  you  can  wash  out  little  crys- 
tals of  clear  white  salt. 

The  Bazungu  has  bought  a  pot  of 
fresh  butter ;  and  when  he  eats  his  sup- 
per that  evening,  the  black  people  look 
on  with  surprise  to  see  him  eat  butter 
raw,  spread  on  his  bread ;  and  Maunka 
offers  to  melt  it  for  him,  that  he  may 
dip  his  bread  into  it.  That  is  the  way 
she  would  eat  it. 

And  now  I  must  tell  you  something 
about  the  new  country  into  which  they 
are  coming.  Already  they  have  met  lit- 
tle rivers  coming  down  from  the  moun- 
tains, and  the  plains  are  covered  with 
tall  grass,  tall  enough  for  tall  men  to 
play  hide-and-seek  in;  and  the  bufEilo 
and  rhinoceros  are  roaming  there,  think- 
ing themselves  safely  hidden  from  hunt- 
ers. 

There  is  need  of  meat  in  the  camp, 
and  Bazungu  plans  a  great  hunt.  The 
men  take  their  bows  and  spears ;  but  the 


44  EACH   AND    ALL. 

white  man  has  a  "  gun  with  six  mouths, 
and  the  balls  travel  far  and  hit  hard." 
I  suppose  we  should  call  it  a  six-barrel 
revolver. 

They  leave  the  camp  early  one  morn- 
ing ;  and  as  they  will  not  return  for  two 
days,  the  men  carry  their  fumbas,  or 
sleeping-bags  of  palm-leaves,  and  the 
little  mosamela,  or  carved  wooden  pil- 
low, hung  over  their  shoulders. 

First  they  shoot  a  zebra,  which  they 
think  gives  "  the  king  of  good  meat." 
But  the  buffalo  and  rhinoceros  are  not 
so  easy  to  approach,  for  each  is  guarded 
by  a  watchful  little  bird  sitting  on  its 
back,  and  looking  out  for  danger;  and 
no  sooner  do  the  faithful  little  sentinels 
catch  a  glimpse  of  spear  or  bow,  than 
the  buffalo-bird  calls  out,  "  Cha,  cha, 
cha !  "  and  the  rhinoceros-bird,  "  Tye, 
tye,  tye ! "  as  much  as  to  say  to  their 
clumsy  friends,  in  their  own  pretty 
language,  "Scamper,  scamper,  quick, 
^uick !  "  and  away  gallop  the  great  crea- 


A   LONG   JOURNEY.  45 

hires,  and  it  is  no  easy  matter  to  over- 
take them. 

But  there  is  always  something  to  be 
had  for  dinner,  when  all  else  fails.  You 
know  the  guinea-hens  with  speckled 
backs,  and  their  funny  call,  "  Come 
back,  come  back !  "  We  see  a  few  of 
them  here ;  but  in  Manenko's  land  they 
are  very  common,  hundreds  and  thou 
sands  of  them  to  be  found  everywhere ; 
and  our  hunters  can  have  roasted  or 
boiled  guinea-hen,  if  nothing  else  :  only, 
m  that  case,  poor  Zungo  will  fare  badly ; 
for  the  heads  and  necks'  are  his,  and 
very  small  indeed  they  are  as  payment 
for  cutting  the  hard  lignum-vitoe  and 
ebony  for  the  firewood.  The  good  Ba- 
zungu,  however,  is  kind  and  thoughtful, 
and  sometimes  gives  him  a  whole  fowl 
for  dinner. 

On  the  second  day  they  kill  two  great 
buffalo;  and  as  they  cannot  carry  all 
the  meat  at  once  to  camp,  a  part  has  to 
be  left  among  the  bushes.     When  they 


46  EACH   AND   ALL. 

go  back  for  it,  they  hear  a  low  growling, 
and,  approaching  cautiously,  see  a  great 
lion  tearing  the  buffalo-flesh  and  eating 
it  as  fast  as  he  can.  Oh,  what  a  pity, 
after  all  their  trouble  in  hunting  !  And 
Sekomi  calls  out  boldly  to  the  lion, 
"Why  don't  you  kill  your  own  beef? 
Are  you  a  chief,  and  so  mean  as  to  steal 
what  other  people  have  killed?"  For 
Sekomi  believes  that  some  chiefs  have 
the  power  of  turning  themselves  into 
lions,  just  as  people  do  in  fairy-stories ; 
and  he  thinks  this  lion  is  really  a  man, 
and  can  understand  what  he  says.  But 
the  lion  does  not  heed  him:  he  only 
growls,  and  goes  on  with  his  meal,  and 
the  buffalo-meat  is  lost. 

The  white  man  cannot  wait  many 
days  for  hunting,  because  he  is  on  his 
way  to  visit  a  great  lake  of  which  he 
has  heard,  and  to  look  for  the  source  of 
a  long  river  of  which  you  will  know 
more  some  day.  So  they  are  soon  on 
the   march   again;    and    the   days    are 


A   LONG   JOURNEY.  47 

growing  warmer  and  warmer,  for  it  is 
mid-summer  in  that  country.  Mid-sum- 
mer, did  I  say?  It  is  just  the  25th  of 
December ;  and  do  you  know  what  day 
that  is  ?  "  Christmas  Day  !  "  you  all  ex- 
claim. Yes,  it  is  Christmas  Day;  and 
the  birds  are  singing,  the  corn  is  spring- 
ing up,  and  the  fields  are  full  of  gay 
flowers. 

You  all  know  the  little  humming- 
birds that  you  see  dipping  into  the  flow- 
ers on  a  summer-day.  In  Manenko's 
land  there  are  not  many  humming-birds, 
but  tiny  sun-birds  instead,  no  bigger 
than  a  great  humble-bee,  and  fluttering 
on  swift-fanning  wings  over  the  pome- 
granate-flowers. The  little  weaver-birds, 
too,  have  put  off  their  winter  clothes  of 
sober  brown,  and  are  gayly  dressed  in 
scarlet  and  black  velvet.  And  here  is 
one  little  red-throated  bird  who  has  put 
on  a  long  train  for  summer  wear,  and 
finds  it  as  difficult  to  fly  about  with  it 
as  some  ladies  do  to  walk  with  theirs. 


48  EACH   AND   ALL. 

I  wish  you  could  see  the  goat-sucker 
bird  that  Zungo  caught,  and  brought 
into  camp  on  Christmas  Day.  He  might 
have  followed  it  all  day  long,  a  month 
ago,  and  yet  have  come  home  empty- 
handed  ;  but  the  vain  little  bird  is  now 
dressed  with  two  very  long  feathers  (as 
long  as  your  arm)  growing  out  of  each 
wing,  and  trailing  so  heavily,  that,  al- 
though at  other  times  he  flies  too  swiftly 
for  any  one  to  catch  him,  he  is  now  slow 
and  clumsy;  and  Zungo  caught  him 
without  trouble. 

In  spite  of  the  hunting,  there  is  great 
need  of  meat  in  the  camp ;  and  some  of 
the  men  are  sick,  and  cannot  travel  any 
farther. 

You  may  wonder  why  they  can't  buy 
meat,  as  we  do,  of  the  butcher ;  but,  be- 
sides the  fact  that  there  is  no  butcher, 
there  is  another  great  objection,  —  there 
is  no  meat.  There  are  neither  sheep 
nor  oxen  in  this  part  of  the  country ;  foi 
the  enemy  has  driven  them  all  away. 


A   LONG   JOURNEY.  49 

a  What  enemy,"  do  you  ask  ? 

A  little  enemy  not  a  thousandth  part 
as  large  as  an  ox,  black  and  yellow  in 
color,  and  carrying  a  very  sharp  and 
dangerous  weapon.  His  name  is  tsetse, 
and  he  is  a  terrible  fly.  He  bites  the 
oxen  and  the  sheep;  and  they  sicken, 
and  in  a  few  days  die.  And  so  deter- 
mined is  this  fierce  little  enemy,  that  no 
sheep  or  oxen  can  live  in  the  country 
after  he  appears.  For  some  reason  of 
his  own,  he  doesn't  bite  goats;  and, 
when  the  white  man  brought  camels 
and  donkeys,  it  was  because  he  thought 
they,  too,  would  be  safe  from  the  tsetse. 
But  he  was  mistaken ;  for  although  he 
rubbed  them  with  lion's  fat  to  keep  them 
safe,  knowing  well  that  the  tsetse  will 
not  hurt  the  lion,  yet  they  were  bitten, 
and  one  by  one  they  died ;  and  now  there 
are  not  men  enough  to  carry  the  loads 
which  the  animals  used  to  carry,  and 
neither  is  there  meat  to  eat :  so  he  de- 
cides to  send  Zungo  as  a  messenger  to 


50  EACH    AND    ALL. 

the  great  chief,  Kabobo,  who  lives  thirty 
miles  away  in  a  town  where  there  is 
food  in  plenty. 

He  does  not  write  a  letter ;  for  none 
of  these  people  can  read ;  but  this  is  the 
message  that  he  teaches  to  Zungo,  and 
Zungo  must  say  it  over  and  over  to  him- 
self as  he  travels  along,  that  he  may  be 
sure  not  to  forget  it. 

"  Bazungu  needs  ten  strong  men,  and 
goats  and  corn.  He  will  pay  cloth  and 
beads,  and  he  sends  you  this  present  to 
let  you  know  his  friendship.' ' 

The  present  was  a  red  shirt,  and  a 
string  of  clear  white  beads.  It  was 
carefully  wrapped  in  palm-leaves,  and 
Zungo  carried  it  on  his  head. 

Over  and  over  again  he  repeated  his 
message,  and  did  not  forget  a  single 
word;  and  in  four  days  his  joyful  shout 
was  heard  in  the  distance,  and  he  and 
his  ten  men  were  soon  welcomed  with 
clapping  of  hands.  Kabobo  had  sent 
corn   and    palm -wine,  and   goats,   and 


A   LONG    JOURNEY.  51 

begged  the  great  Bazungu  to  visit  him 
very  soon. 

But  Bazungu  cannot  visit  any  one  at 
present ;  for  the  hot,  damp  weather  has 
made  him  very  ill.  He  lies  in  his  hut, 
burning  with  fever;  and  poor  little  Ma- 
nenko,  too,  lies  on  a  mat  beside  her 
mother,  with  hot,  fevered  hands,  and  dry, 
quick  breath.  But,  though  he  is  so  ill 
himself,  the  stranger,  when  he  hears  of 
the  sick  child,  prepares  for  her  a  bitter 
little  powder  like  the  one  he  is  taking 
himself.  Of  course,  the  little  girl  doesn't 
like  the  bitter  taste  of  it;  but  the  next 
day  she  is  better,  and  able  to  sit  up,  and 
soon  she  can  go  with  her  mother  to  say 
"  Motota"  to  the  kind  Bazungu. 

Don't  forget  this  bitter  medicine,  for 
you  will  hear  of  it  again  before  you  fin- 
ish this  book. 

In  a  few  days  they  are  all  able  to  go 
to  Kabobo's  village ;  and  there,  for  the 
first  time  in  her  life,  Manenko  sees  a 
square  house  :  there  are  two  or  three  of 


52  EACH   AND   ALL. 

* 

them  in  the  village,  built  by  people  who 
have  travelled  away  to  the  seacoast,  and 
there  seen  houses  like  them. 

Around  Kabobo's  town  are  pleasant 
fields  and  gardens;  and  every  thing  is 
growing  finely,  excepting  one  patch  of 
corn,  which  the  men  say  they  planted  in 
the  mouse-month,  and  so  lost  half  of  it, 
for  the  mice  ate  the  seeds. 

One  meadow  is  covered  with  pure  lit- 
tle white  lilies  ;  and  some  medlar-bushes 
hang  thick  with  blossoms.  Among  the 
tall  reeds  you  hear  the  brown  ibis 
scream,  "  Ha,  ha,  ha ! "  and  flocks  of 
green  pigeons  are  feeding  on  the  fruits 
of  the  wild  fig-tree.  Certainly  it  is  a 
pleasant  place ;  and,  after  their  long 
journey,  Sekomi's  family  think  that  here 
they  will  make  their  new  home. 

The  women  of  the  village  look  up 
pleasantly  as  they  pass,  and  say,  "  Yam- 
bo?"  ("How  are  you?")  And  they 
answer,  "  Yambo  sana."  ("  Very  well.") 
Everybody  seems  kind,  and  glad  to  see} 
the  travellers. 


A   LONG   JOURNEY.  53 

So  Maunka  begins  at  once  to  build 
a  new  house.  And  then  she  finds  fine 
clay,  and  shapes  new  water-jars,  smooth- 
ing; them  into  their  beautiful  rounded 
forms  with  her  hands,  and  marking  them 
on  the  edge  with  pretty  braided  pat- 
terns like  this  which  you  see  in  the  pic- 
ture. And  soon  the  new  house  is  well 
provided ;  for  twenty  pots  for  water,  for 
honey,  and  for  porridge,  hang  from  the 
ceiling. 

But  no  sooner  has  Maunka  built  her 
house  than  another  builder  comes  quiet- 
ly in,  and  goes  to  work  to  build  hers  in 
one  corner  of  it.  It  is  the  paper  spider ; 
and  Manenko  sees  her  lay  her  forty  or 
fifty  eggs  upon  the  wall,  and  then  begin 
to  make  her  pure  white  paper  house  to 
shelter  them.  She  thinks  the  mother- 
spider  is  not  so  different  from  any  other 
mother;  and,  instead  of  driving  her 
away,  she  watches  while  the  careful 
builder  prepares  her  little  paper  wall, 
half  as  big  as  the  palm  of  Edith's  hand, 


54  EACH   AND   ALL. 

and  then  fastens  it  firmly  over  the  eggs 
by  a  strip  not  wider  than  your  finger- 
nail, pasted  strongly  all  round  the  edges 

For  three  long  weeks  she  sits,  like  a 
mother-bird  on  her  eggs,  to  keep  them 
warm ;  after  that  she  goes  out  for  food 
in  the  day,  but  always  comes  back  to 
cuddle  them  closely  at  night ;  and  Ma- 
nenko  is  never  afraid  for  her,  but  watches 
every  day  to  see  when  the  little  ones 
will  come  out  of  the  eggs. 

Sekomi  has  been  busy  planting  corn, 
and  also  some  seeds  that  the  white  man 
has  given  him,  and  they  already  feel  at 
home. 

Their  good  friend  the  Bazungu  has 
tried  to  give  them  one  present  better 
even  than  the  cloth,  or  the  beads,  or  the 
garden-seeds:  he  has  tried  to  teach 
Zungo  and  Manenko  to  read.  But,  oh, 
what  hard  work  it  is  !  You  have  no 
idea  of  the  difficulty;  and  at  last  one 
day  poor  Zungo  says  in  despair,  "  0 
Bazungu!    give   me   medicine:    I    shall 


A   LONG    JOURNEY.  55 

drink  it  to  make  me  understand."  But 
you  and  I  know  that  the  only  medicine 
that  can  make  us  learn  is  patience  and 
perseverance  ;  and  even  Zungo  will  learn 
in  time,  if  he  has  these. 

You  will  all  see  by  and  by  that  even 
the  little  knowledge  of  reading  and 
speaking  English  that  he  gained  is  a 
help  to  him;  for  a  few  months  later, 
another  white  man  comes  from  the  north 
to  Kabobo's  village  ;  and  when  he  finds 
that  Zungo  can  read  a  little,  and  under- 
stands some  words  of  English,  he  hires 
him  as  an  interpreter,  and  promises  to 
take  him  on  a  long  journey,  pay  him 
well,  and  send  him  safely  home  again. 

And  now,  before  we  leave  them  in 
their  new  home,  I  must  tell  you  of  one 
thing  that  happens  to  Manenko.  She  is 
getting  to  be  a  great  girl ;  and  it  is  time 
for  her  to  begin  to  wear  the  pelele. 

But  what  is  the  pelele  ? 

It  is  an  ivory  ring,  but  not  for  the  fin- 
ger, or  even  for  the  ears.    This  poor  chile7 


56  EACH   AND   ALL. 

is  going  to  have  her  upper  lip  bored; 
and  this  ring  will  be  put  into  the  hole, 
not  to  hang  down,  but  to  stand  out 
straight  and  flat  in  a  very  inconvenient 
way ;  but  everybody  thought  it  was 
beautiful,  and,  even  if  the  little  girl  finds 
it  painful,  she  will  not  complain,  but  will 
consider  it  quite  an  honor.  Her  second 
teeth  have  come  now ;  and  they  must  bo 
filed  away  to  points,  so  that  they  look 
like  a  cat's  little  sharp  teeth,  and  then 
she  is  thought  to  look  very  pretty  indeed. 
The  white  man  has  made  a  picture  of 
her,  dressed  in  her  best  beads,  and  carry- 
ing a  pretty  new  water-jar  on  her  head. 
He  will  take  it  home  to  his  own  dear 
daughter,  that  she  may  learn  how  her 
little  dark  sisters  look  in  this  far-away 
land. 


WHAT  WAS   GEMILA  DOING  ALL 
THIS   TIME? 

We  have  been  wandering  through 
strange,  wild  lands.  Come  with  me  now 
to  a  great  city.  But  I  doubt  if  you  feel 
more  at  home  in  it  than  you  did  on 
Agoonack's  ice-island,  or  Manenko's  long 
journey ;  for  it  is  not  at  all  like  any  city 
you  have  ever  seen ;  not  like  Boston  or 
New  York,  not  like  St.  Louis  or  Chi- 
cago. 

Let  us  stand  still  for  a  minute,  if  we 
can  find  a  quiet  spot  in  this  narrow, 
crowded  street,  and  see  what  it  is  like. 
It  is  Sunday  afternoon ;  but  we  hear  no 
church-bells,  and  all  the  business  seems 
to  be  going  on  just  the  same  as  on  a 
week-day. 

"Don't  these  people  have  any  Sun- 
day? "  asks  Dadie. 

91 


58  EACH    AND    ALL. 

Oh,  yes !  but  their  Sunday  is  Friday. 
On  Friday  they  will  go  to  their  churches, 
and  have  their  services;  but  to-day  is 
their  market-day,  and,  in  almost  all  the 
towns  we  may  visit  in  this  country,  we 
shall  find  a  Sunday  market. 

We  are  close  beside  a  shop  now,  but, 
oh  !  what  a  funny  shop  !  hardly  bigger 
than  a  cupboard;  and  the  whole  side 
towards  the  street  is  open.  Will  you 
buy  some  of  these  sugared  almonds,  or 
a  few  delicious  golden  dates,  of  that 
turbaned  man  who  sits  so  quietly  in 
the  corner,  and  doesn't  seem  to  care 
whether  we  buy  or  not  ?  If  we  want 
either  dates  or  almonds,  we  must  take  a 
piastre  out  of  our  pockets  to  pay  for 
them ;  for  a  bright  silver  dime,  or  a  five- 
cent  piece  would  be  something  so  new 
and  strange  to  our  shop-keeper,  that  he 
would  shake  his  head,  and  hand  it  back 
to  you. 

But  we  mustn't  spend  too  much  time 
buying  dates.     There  is  something  bet- 


WHAT   WAS   GEMILA   DOING?  59 

ter  to  do  in  this  wonderful  city,  where 
even  the  houses  are  curious  enough  to 
make  us  stop,  and  gaze  at  them.  See 
the  pretty  balconies  built  out  around  the 
windows,  and  sheltered  by  screens  or 
shutters  of  beautifully  carved  wood.  I 
fancy  we  can  catch  a  glimpse  of  some 
bright  eyes  peeping  out  at  us  through 
the  delicate  lattice-work;  for  all  the 
ladies  of  this  city  sit  with  their  little 
daughters  all  day  long  in  these  balco- 
nies, and  look  out  through  the  screens,  on 
the  streets  below  them,  and  on  the  pass- 
ers-by. And  the  flocks  of  pretty  ring- 
doves sit  cooing  about  them;  and  the 
swallows  fly  in  and  out ;  and  sometimes 
even  the  vultures  alight  there  for  a  mo- 
ment, and  no  one  drives  them  away ;  for 
what  would  become  of  the  people  and 
the  city,  if  the  faithful  vultures  did  not 
clean  the  streets  every  day  ? 

But,  quick,  we  must  crowd  ourselves 
close  to  the  wall,  and  keep  out  of  the 
way  of  that  tall,  brown  camel  who  paces 


60  EACH    AND   ALL. 

up  the  street  so  silently,  that  we  heard 
no  footfall,  and  did  not  know  he  was 
coming  until  his  long  shadow  fell  across 
us  from  behind.  He  moves  up  the  nar- 
row lane  as  if  the  whole  of  it  belonged 
to  him,  for  he  has  come  from  the  desert, 
where  there  is  plenty  of  room,  and  he 
has  no  idea  of  being  crowded ;  and  those 
donkeys,  with  their  wild-looking  little 
drivers,  must  get  out  of  his  way  as  best 
they  can.  How  they  scramble,  and  how 
the  boys  shout  to  them !  but  the  silent 
camel  moves  on  towards  the  fountain  in 
the  next  square,  and  takes  no  notice  at 
all  of  their  noise.  He  is  loaded  with 
great  bales  of  gum ;  and  his  master  is 
going  to  sell  them  to  the  gum-merchant 
at  the  corner  of  the  square. 

I  wonder  if  you  will  remember  the 
master,  this  gray-faced  man,  with  his 
white  turban  and  loose  cotton  dress.  It 
is  really  Abdel  Hassan ;  but  you  didn't 
expect  to  meet  him  a  city,  did  you? 
Little  Gemila  is  with  him  too;  that  is, 


WHAT    WAS    GEMILA    DOING?  61 

she  is  in  the  camp  outside  the  city  gates 
(for  this  city  has  walls  and  gates,  and  is 
shut  up  every  night) ;  and  to-morrow 
she  will  come  into  the  strange  streets 
with  her  little  brother  Alee  and  one  of 
the  servants,  to  look  about  her,  as  we 
were  doing  just  now  when  we  had  to 
start  aside,  and  make  way  for  her  father's 
camel. 

I  wish  we  could  take  little  Gemila's 
hand,  and  walk  with  her  through  the  city 
to-morrow,  and  see  how  wonderful  it 
would  all  be  to  her. 

The  donkeys  with  their  high-cushioned 
red  saddles,  and  the  camels  with  their 
noiseless  tread,  the  red  fez  caps  and  tur- 
bans, and  the  women  with  long  veils,  and 
bright  eyes  peering  through  the  little 
slit  that  is  left  open  for  them,  —  these 
would  not  be  strange  to  her;  but  the 
many  beautiful  fountains  meeting  you 
at  every  corner  with  a  refreshing  drink, 
that  is  something  to  astonish  our  little 
desert  maiden,  who  generally  has  drunk 


62  EACH   AND    ALL. 

water  only  from  leathern  bags  or  desert 
springs.  And  the  houses  that  crowd  so 
close  on  both  sides  of  the  street,  and 
shut  out  the  sky,  so  that  she  sees  only 
one  narrow  strip  of  blue  instead  of  her 
wide  desert  dome ;  and  the  bazaars, 
where  people  are  hustling  each  other, 
and  shouting,  and  bargaining  for  shawls 
and  slippers,  gold  lace,  and  silk  embroi- 
deries ;  these  are  things  almost  unheard 
of  to  the  little  girl,  whose  only  garment 
has  been  the  brown  cotton  dress. 

There  is  one  thing,  however,  at  which 
Gemila  is  never  tired  of  looking :  she 
could  sit  and  watch  it  from  morning  till 
night,  so  strange,  so  wonderful,  does  it 
seem  to  her.  This  is  not  her  first  sight 
of  it,  as  you  will  presently  learn.  But  so 
strange  a  sight  does  not  lose  its  newness 
very  soon ;  and  so  it  is  that  whenever,  in 
looking  down  a  street,  she  sees  at  the 
end  the  broad  river  sparkling  in  the  sun- 
shine, she  leaves  every  other  sight  for 
that,  and  runs  to  sit  beside  it,  and  see 


WHAT   WAS   GEMILA   DOING?  63 

the  ripples  dance  along,  and  the '  boats 
with  their  pointed  blue-and-white  sails, 
and  the  sailors  rowing,  and  singing  to 
keep  time  for  their  oars. 

But  you  will  want  to  know  how  it 
happened  that  Gemila  left  her  desert 
home,  and  surprised  us  by  appearing  in 
the  streets  of  Cairo ;  and  I  must  go  back 
two  or  three  months,  and  tell  you  all 
about  it ;  for,  like  Manenko,  she,  too,  has 
taken  a  long  and  wonderful  journey,  at 
least,  it  seems  wonderful  to  you  and  me, 
for  we  are  not  so  accustomed  to  travel- 
ling as  she  is. 

I  think  it  was  about  Christmas  time,  a 
hot  desert  Christmas,  remember,  that 
Abdel  Hassan  was  journeying  as  usual 
from  one  part  of  his  wide  desert  home 
to  another,  when  he  met  the  caravan 
from  Kordofan,  with  thirty  camel-loads 
of  gum,  on  its  way  to  the  great  city  of 
Cairo. 

I  know  you  must  have  seen  the  gum 
that  oozes  out  from  the  peach  and  pJum 


64  BACH   AND   ALL. 

trees  in  such  clear,  sticky  drops ;  or,  at 
any  rate,  if  you  don't  know  that,  you 
have  seen  gum-arabic,  which  you  can 
buy  at  the  druggists.  Now,  on  the  bor- 
ders of  the  desert,  a  great  many  gum- 
trees  grow;  and  the  great,  clear  drops 
of  gum  ooze  out  of  them,  as  they  do 
from  the  peach-tree,  only  there  is  much 
more  of  it,  so  that  it  lies  on  the  ground 
in  little  lumps,  under  the  trees;  and 
children  as  young  as  Gemila  and  Alee 
go  out  to  help  gather  it;  and  the  men 
pack  it  in  great  bags,  and  load  the  camels 
with  it,  and  set  out  on  a  long  desert 
march  of  many,  many  miles,  to  sell  it  in 
the  distant  city,  and  to  buy,  in  return, 
cloth  and  guns,  shawls  and  turbans;  just 
as  the  Sheik  Hassein  did  whom  Abdel 
Hassan  met  one  day  long  ago,  you  re- 
member. The  Kordofan  sheik  meets 
Abdel  Hassan  gladly,  and,  dismounting 
from  his  horse,  sits  beside  him  on  a  mat, 
and  tells  him  that  to  see  him  is  like  the 
blessing  of  a  new  moon.     And  an  Arab 


WHAT  WAS   GEMILA   DOING?  65 

can  hardly  express  greater  pleasure  than 
that.  Then  they  smoke  their  long  pipes, 
and  drink  coffee  together,  and  finally 
the  sheik  explains  that  he  wants  more 
camels  to  help  carry  the  gum ;  and,  after 
much  talk,  he  agrees  to  buy  two  camels 
of  Abdel  Hassan,  and  to  pay  him  with 
bales  of  gum.  And  Abdel  Hassan,  to 
whom  one  part  of  the  world  is  as  much 
home  as  another,  decides  to  journey 
himself  to  Cairo,  and  sell  the  gum. 
And,  since  he  goes,  his  whole  family  will 
go  too. 

So  the  next  day  they  turn  their  faces 
northward,  and  travel  towards  Cairo, 
having  first  asked  the  Kordofan  mer- 
chants how  far  it  is  to  the  next  spring. 

Their  question  is  answered  in  a  curious 
way ;  for,  as  these  people  have  not  many 
words,  they  make  one  answer  the  pur- 
pose of  two  or  three.  Let  me  show  you 
how  they  do  it.  If  the  spring  had  been 
very  near,  they  would  have  answered, 
u  Henak;  "  but,  as  it  is  a  very  long  dis- 


66  EACH   AND   ALL. 

tance  away,  they  make  the  word  very 
long,  and  say,  "  Hen-a-a-a-a-ak,"  and  it 
isn't  so  poor  a  way  of  telling  distance 
after  all,  is  it  ? 

You  know  so  well  what  Gemila's 
journeys  generally  are,  that  I  will  not 
tell  you  much  about  this,  excepting  the 
one  or  two  unusual  events  of  it.  The 
first  of  these  happened  on  New- Year's 
Day,  and  made  it  any  thing  but  a  happy 
new  year.  It  wasn't  a  snow-storm ;  but 
it  was  a  sand-storm.  The  air  was  hot 
and  hazy :  you  could  scarcely  see  the 
sun,  although  there  were  no  clouds  to 
hide  him;  and  presently  all  this  sultry 
air  began  to  stir,  and  whistle,  and  rush, 
and  whirl ;  and  the  light,  dry  sand  was 
caught  up  by  it,  blown  into  drifts  as  high 
as  a  tall  man,  driven  into  every  fold  of 
the  dress  or  turban,  into  every  eye  and 
ear  and  nostril,  with  a  cutting,  stinging 
keenness  such  as  we  might  feel  in  a 
fierce,  wild  snow-storm  in  one  of  our 
bitter  winter-days,  only  it  is  hot  and 
tingling,  instead  of  cold  and  tingling. 


WHAT   WAS   GEMILA   DOING?  67 

You  could  perhaps  bear  this  for  a  few 
minutes,  but  not  longer ;  and  this  terrible 
storm  lasted  two  hours.  At  first  the 
men  only  unfolded  the  cloth  of  their 
turbans  so  as  to  wrap  it  round  the  face 
and  ears;  and  the  women  and  children 
drew  veils  over  their  heads :  but  it  was 
impossible  to  continue  to  travel  in  such 
a  storm.  And  when  they  saw  a  great 
rock  not  far  away,  standing  like  a  tall, 
black  tower  or  fortress  in  the  yellow 
sand,  Abdel  Hassan  was  not  slow  in  leap- 
ing from  his  black  horse,  and  planting 
his  spear,  as  a  sign  that  they  should  en- 
camp in  this  welcome  shelter. 

Here  they  lay,  and  heard  the  great 
whistling  wind  drive  through  every 
cranny  and  crevice ;  and  at  last  they  saw 
a  tall  pillar  of  sand  whirled  up  by  the 
wind  until  it  seemed  to  reach  the  sky. 
It  moved  along  in  a  stately  sort  of  waltz, 
round  and  round,  and  still  advancing  over 
the  burning  sands,  and  presently  it  was 
joined  by  another,  and  another,  and  the 


68  EACH    AND    ALL. 

strange  monsters  moved  on  like  a  party 
of  giants  pleasing  themselves  by  a  wild 
desert  dance ;  and  it  was  well  for  little 
Gemila  that  the  wind  carried  them  away 
from,  instead  of  towards,  her  sheltering 
rock;  for  who  would  have  been  able  to 
stand  against  those  terrible,  strong, 
blinding  whirls  of  sand  that  the  fierce 
wind  had  raised  ? 

When  at  last  the  sun  could  be  seen 
again,  and  the  wind  slowly  died  away, 
our  poor  travellers  lay  tired  and  fever- 
ish, and  as  little  able  to  proceed  on  their 
way  as  if  they  had  been  ill  for  many 
days. 

But  a  cool  and  quiet  night  refreshed 
them,  and  early  in  the  morning  they  are 
up  and  away.  The  only  signs  that  the 
sand-storm  had  left  behind  were  great 
yellow  drifts,  some  of  them  as  high  as 
a  house,  that  hid  the  track,  and  confused 
even  Abdel  Hassan  himself  as  to  which 
direction  he  should  take  to  reach  the 
bitter  wells,  their  next    drinking-place. 


WHAT   WAS   GEMILA   DOING?  69 

And  so  it  happened  that  they  rode 
doubtfully  on  during  all  that  morning, 
and,  after  the  noonday  rest,  changed 
their  line  of  march  a  little  more  towards 
the  north,  and  looked  eagerly  forward 
for  the  first  distant  glimpse  of  the  tufted 
top  of  a  palm-tree. 

And  Gemila  is  the  first  to  clap  her 
hands,  and  shout,  t(  Look,  look !  "  while 
she  points  towards  the  distant  horizon ; 
and  there  against  the  blue  sky  stand 
clusters  of  feathery  palms  beside  a  pret- 
ty pond  of  water,  that  looks  like  a  bit 
of  the  sky  itself  dropped  down  to  rest 
upon  the  yellow  sands,  and  in  the 
water's  edge  tall  reeds  are  growing,  and 
on  the  farther  shore  stand  black  rocks 
overhanging  their  black  reflections  in 
the  water.  Oh,  what  a  lovely  little 
place  !  —  the  prettiest  spring  that  the 
child  has  ever  seen.  But  although  she 
claps  her  hands,  and  shouts  for  joy,  her 
father  shows  no  signs  of  pleasure ;  and 
the  camel-drivers  only  shake  their  heads, 


70  EACH   AND   ALL. 

and  look  sober ;  and  neither  do  the  cam- 
els nor  horses  hasten  forward,  as  they 
usually  do  when  they  smell  the  fresh 
water  from  afar. 

"  See/'  says  old  Achmet  to  the  little 
girl,  "  see,  it  is  not  a  true  spring :  those 
are  not  real  palm-trees.  Watch  them, 
and  you  will  know  that  I  tell  you  the 
truth." 

And  Gemila  watched;  and  presently 
some  of  the  trees  seemed  to  be  standing 
on  their  heads,  and  the  pretty  blue  pond 
ran  into  the  sky,  as  if  there  were  no 
line  between  -,  and  Achmet  said  to  her, 
"If  it  were  real  water,  it  would  look 
darker  than  the  sky ;  but  this  is  just  the 
same  color."  And,  as  she  watched,  a 
silvery  blur  came  over  it  all,  and  she 
rubbed  her  eyes  to  see  more  plainly; 
but  when  she  looked  again,  it  was  all 
gone,  and  the  desolate  waste  of  yellow 
sand  lay  before  them.  It  was  only  a 
beautiful  air-picture,  which  is  called  a 
mirage ;  and  wise  desert  travellers  like 


WHAT    WAS    GEMILA    DOING?  71 

Abdel  Hassan  and  Achmet  know  it 
well ;  but  strangers  or  children  are  de- 
ceived by  it,  and  wander  out  of  their 
way  to  find  the  refreshing  place,  which 
vanishes  into  silver  mist,  and  leaves 
them  to  turn  back  disappointed,  if  in- 
deed they  are  able  to  find  the  path  at 
all. 

You  will  be  glad  to  know  that  before 
sunset  they  did  reach  a  real  spring  or 
well  of  bitter  water,  not  very  good,  but 
better  than  nothing;  and  the  camels 
drank,  and  the  water-bags  were  filled, 
and  they  went  on  as  before. 

And  now  every  day  they  see  some- 
thing new.  There  are  valleys  walled  in 
by  black  rocks ;  and  there  are  strange 
caves,  where  they  sometimes  camp  at 
night;  and  at  last,  one  day,  they  see 
before  them  everywhere  groves  of  trees, 
—  date,  lemon,  citron,  and  acacia,  and 
many  others ;  and,  as  they  turn  out  of 
the  rocky  valley,  the  men  raise  a  great 
shout,  "El  bahr,  el  bahr !  "  ("The  river, 


72  EACH    AND    ALL. 

the  river!")  The  broad,  blue,  rolling 
water  lies  before  them;  and  this  is 
Gemila's  first  sight  of  the  river.  Now 
it  will  keep  them  company  for  days  and 
days  as  they  journey  along  its  banks, 
and  drink  of  its  waters,  and  hear  its  rip- 
pling waves  at  night  as  they  lie  in  the 
caves  along  its  shores,  and  feel  its  cool 
breeze  refreshing  them  after  the  terrible 
desert  heat. 

One  night  they  reach  a  great  rock 
filled  with  caves  like  little  rooms  of  a 
house,  and  all  the  walls  inside  are  paint- 
ed with  strange  pictures. 

You  know  we  sometimes  take  a  pic- 
ture, and  make  up  a  story  about  it,  tell- 
ing what  we  think  this  or  that  person  is 
doing,  or  where  he  is  going ;  but  these 
pictures  tell  stories  themselves,  —  that  is 
what  they  were  painted  there  for,  —  and 
there  is  a  long,  hard  name  for  them, 
which  means  something  like  picture- 
writing. 

Gemila  sees  one  wall  all  marked  out 


WHAT    WAS    GEMILA    DOING?  73 

in  bright  colors,  —  red,  blue,  green,  and 
yellow  pictures,  telling  how  a  family 
had  visitors  to  dine,  and  how  the  cooks 
prepared  the  dishes,  and  how  the  baby 
sat  in  his  mother's  lap  and  watched  the 
guests,  and  how  the  cats  and  dogs  lived 
and  played  with  them  just  as  they  do 
with  you  to-day;  only  nobody  in  all 
those  pictures  was  ever  seen  to  hurt  or 
trouble  any  animal ;  and  when  I  tell  you 
that  the  people  who  painted  them  lived 
thousands  of  years  ago,  you  will  wonder, 
as  I  do,  that  we  can  still  see  them  so 
plainly.  I  think  they  had  very  good 
paints  :  don't  you  ?  They  couldn't  write 
as  we  do  now,  and  they  wanted  all  the 
story  of  their  lives — what  they  did,  and 
where  they  went,  and  what  little  chil- 
dren they  had  to  love  and  take  care  of 
—  to  be  remembered  :  so  they  had  it  all 
painted  on  these  hard  rocks,  that  would 
not  wear  out  as  the  leaves  of  books  do ; 
and  there  you  and  I  could  see  it  this 
very  day,  just  as  Gemila  does  when  she 


74  EACH    AND    ALL. 

wakes  at  early  morning,  and  creeps  up 
over  the  steep  rocks,  and  looks  at  the 
pictures,  where  the  long  rays  of  the 
rising  sun  shine  far  into  the  caves. 
There  is  a  red  man  with  a  green  head, 
driving  four  horses  harnessed  to  a  char- 
iot ;  and  a  little  blue  girl  is  feeding  the 
pigeons,  just  as  we  should  want  to  feed 
the  living  pigeons  that  flutter  in  such 
great  flocks  around  every  village,  and 
sleep  in  the  funny,  tall  pigeon-houses 
made  of  earthen  jars  on  the  top  of 
almost  every  house. 

You  see,  now  that  they  have  reached 
the  river,  they  find  villages  all  along  its 
banks ;  and,  for  the  first  time  in  her  life, 
Gemila  learns  what  houses  are,  and 
thinks  that  she  likes  a  tent  better ;  and 
she  sees  waving  fields  of  golden  wheat, 
and  the  rice  growing  in  the  low  mead- 
ows; and  she  tastes  the  gingerbread 
that  grows  on  the  dom-palm  tree.  She 
watches  the  brown  ibis,  and  the  stork 
and  vulture,  busy  at  their  work  of  clean- 


WHAT    WAS    GEMILA   DOING?  75 

ing  the  village  streets,  picking  up  and 
eating  up  all  the  dirty  and  disagreeable 
things  that  the  careless  people  have 
thrown  there,  which  would  otherwise 
soon  decay  and  cause  sickness. 

Our  little  girl  has  hardly  time  to  sleep, 
there  is  so  much  to  see.  The  children, 
too,  are  so  different  in  some  ways  from 
herself!  Here  is  one  little  girl  buttering 
her  hair  with  a  thick  layer  of  not  very 
sweet  butter;  and  another  has  all  her 
braids  soaked  in  castor  oil,  and  thinks  it 
charming.  They  can  swim  too;  and 
you  may  very  well  know  that  Gemila, 
who  has  never  before  seen  a  river,  or 
even  a  lake,  has  never  learned  to  swim ; 
and  when  she  sees  the  girls  and  boys 
splashing  in  the  water,  she  laughs  and 
shouts  with  delight.  One  little  boy  sits 
astride  a  round  log  for  a  boat,  and  steers 
himself  across  the  stream.  How  she 
wishes  she  could  do  the  same ! 

But,  if  I  stop  to  tell  you  all  the  won- 
ders of  the  way,  we  shall  never  reach 


76  EACH    AND    ALL. 

Cairo  :  so  let  us  hurry  on,  past  the  great 
stone  pyramids  standing  so  grand  in  the 
desert,  and  past  the  wonderful  stone 
image  with  head  like  a  person,  and  fore- 
paws  like  a  lion,  and  all  the  rest  of  its 
body  buried  in  sand,  that  looked  so 
grand  and  solemn  in  the  moonlight  as 
they  met  it  suddenly  on  their  march  the 
last  evening  before  reaching  Cairo.  The 
great  solemn  face,  ten  yards  in  length, 
looking  out  over  the  desert  sands,  seemed 
to  have  a  thousand  wonderful  stories  to 
tell  of  all  that  it  had  seen  since  the  men 
of  ages  ago  carved  it  out  of  the  great 
rock;  but  it  told  none  of  them  to  the 
little  awe-struck  Arab  girl,  nor  to  the 
camel-drivers,  who  hastened  to  pitch 
the  red-and-black  striped  tent,  and  un- 
load their  camels  for  the  night,  as  if  the 
great  face  were  not  watching  them  all 
the  while. 

Very  early  in  the  morning,  while  sky 
and  sand  are  covered  with  rosy  light, 
Gemila  is  wandering  among  the  strange, 


WHAT   WAS   GEMILA   DOING?  77 

great  rocks,  watching  the  lizards'  little 
red  or  blue  tails  disappearing  through 
the  cracks  as  they  glide  away  from  her, 
and  the  little  jerboas  sitting  outside  their 
sand  houses.  But  already  the  camels 
are  loaded,  and  the  tents  are  struck,  and 
to-day  she  will  see  the  gates  of  Cairo. 

I  wish  I  had  time  to  tell  you  of  all 
that  may  be  seen  in  that  city ;  but  we 
are  leading  an  Arab  life  now,  and  do  not 
stop  long  in  any  one  place :  and  so  it 
is  that  one  day,  when  the  Khamaseen 
wind  begins  to  blow,  Abdel  Hassan  is 
reminded  of  the  desert;  the  old  wan- 
dering feeling  comes  over  him,  and  he 
says  he  will  stay  no  longer  in  Cairo. 

But  perhaps  you  do  not  know  why 
the  Khamaseen  wind  should  remind  him 
of  the  desert.  It  has  come  from  the 
desert,  and  it  fills  all  the  air  with  a  fine 
yellow  dust  that  is  borrowed  from  the 
yellow  sand  on  the  way.  They  call  it 
Khamaseen,  because,  in  the  language  of 
that   country,  Khamaseen   means  fifty; 


78  EACH   AND    ALL. 

and  for  fifty  days  this  hot  wind  blows 
most  of  the  time.  It  has  reminded  Ab- 
del  Hassan  of  his  old  home,  and  he  must 
begin  to  think  of  his  return. 

But  he  has  sold  his  camels,  as  well  as 
his  gum ;  and  what  is  an  Arab  without 
camels?  True,  he  has  money  enough 
to  buy  more  than  he  has  ever  owned 
before,  but  he  will  buy  them  better  from 
the  desert  tribes  than  here  in  Cairo; 
and  so  it  happens  that  a  new  way  of  life 
offers  itself  for  him  and  his  family.  They 
will  go  in  a  Nile  boat  as  far  as  Korosko ; 
and  there,  where  the  river  makes  a  great 
curve  like  the  letter  C,  and  half  encir- 
cles a  desert,  they  will  leave  it,  and  be- 
gin again  their  life  among  the  rocks  and 
sand. 

This  is  a  delightful  journey  to  Gemila 
and  Alee :  they  are  learning  to  love  the 
river,  and  to  know  what  a  mighty  friend 
it  is  to  all  the  country.  We  who  live 
by  a  river  can  tell  how  useful  it  is  in 
many  ways  to  our  own   country;    but 


WHAT   WAS   GEMILA   DOING?  79 

this  great  river  Nile  is  more  useful  to  its 
country  than  any  of  our  rivers  are  to  us. 
Before  Gemila  reaches  her  desert  home, 
she  will  see  a  very  remarkable  change 
in  it.  Now  its  waters  roll  quietly  on  in 
a-  narrow  channel ;  but  in  a  few  weeks 
they  will  rise  and  rise  higher  and  higher 
every  day,  and  presently  all  the  country 
on  both  sides  will  be  flooded  like  a  great 
lake.  "Ah!"  you  say,  "what  will  be- 
come of  all  the  poor  people  and  the 
houses?" 

Do  not  be  anxious  about  them;  for 
they  have  seen  the  river  behave  in  this 
way  every  year  since  they  were  born, 
and  they  have  built  all  their  houses  on 
high  land  for  safety ;  and  they  watch  the 
rising  of  the  water  with  delight,  for  it 
comes  as  a  messenger  of  good-will  to  tell 
them  of  fruitful  fields  and  fine  harvests, 
since  it  waters  for  them  the  fields  on 
which  no  rain  ever  falls.  Only  think  of 
that :  Gemila  has  never  seen  rain !  I 
have  heard  it  said  that  there  is  a  great 


80  EACH   AND   ALL. 

shower  in  the  desert,  perhaps  once  in 
ten  or  twenty  years ;  but  our  little  girl 
is  only  nine  years  old,  and  it  hasn't  come 
in  her  time.  Think  how  dry  and  desolate 
the  whole  country  would  be  if  it  were 
not  that  this  good  friend  the  river  gath- 
ers all  the  rains  and  melted  snows  from 
the  mountain  countries  far  away,  even 
as  far  as  those  hills  towards  which  Ma- 
nenko  travelled,  and  pours  them  down 
through  hundreds  of  miles  to  bless  and 
refresh  this  thirsty  land. 

In  our  country  we  have  four  seasons ; 
and  when  the  snow  is  all  gone,  and  the 
birds  begin  to  come,  and  the  farmers 
prepare  to  plant  their  seeds,  we  call  it 
spring;  summer  brings  the  flowers  and 
fruits,  and  autumn  is  harvest  time ; 
then  comes  winter,  which  Dossie  and 
Edith  like  best  of  all.  But  in  this  land 
where  Gemila  is  travelling,  the  river 
alone  decides  what  the  seasons  shall  be. 

When  the  water  begins  to  rise,  it  is 
like  a  promise  of  spring  to  the  farmer ; 


WHAT    WAS    GEMILA    DOING?  81 

and  so  regularly  does  it  rise  and  fall,  that 
he  knows  well,  that,  when  November 
comes,  he  must  have  his  seed  ready  for 
planting ;  for  the  river  will  have  fallen, 
and  the  rich,  damp  slime  will  be  left  by 
its  waters  upon  the  fields:  so  we  may 
call  November  his  spring-time.  And 
when  the  wheat  and  rice  are  well  grown 
in  the  damp  fields,  and  need  only  a 
greater  heat  to  ripen  them,  then  comes 
the  Khamaseen  wind,  and  hastens  the 
harvest;  and  that  must  bring  autumn; 
and,  after  autumn,  do  you  think  they 
expect  snow?  Oh,  no,  indeed!  They 
have  never  seen  snow,  and  only  once  in 
a  while  a  little  ice.  But  a  dry,  hot  time 
comes,  wrhen  nothing  will  grow,  and  the 
river  has  shrunk  away  again  into  its  old 
narrow  bed ;  and  you  may  call  the  sea- 
son by  what  name  you  like,  only  the 
people  are  very  glad  when  it  ends,  and 
the  friendly  river  begins  to  rise  again ; 
and  that  is  about  the  last  of  June. 
But  all  this  while  the  river  has  been 


82  EACH   AND    ALL. 

floating  our  travellers  down  to  Korosko ; 
and  here  Abdel  Hassan  buys  his  camels, 
and  among  them  one  beautiful  milk- 
white  dromedary,  a  camel  with  one 
hump  upon  its  back  instead  of  two. 
This  gentle  creature  trots  and  runs  with 
so  easy  and  steady  a  motion  that  its 
rider  might  drink  a  cup  of  milk  while 
going  at  a  full  trot,  and  not  spill  a  single 
drop.  Wouldn't  you  like  to  have  that 
dromedary  to  ride  on,  little  Georgie  ? 
Do  you  think  Gemila  will  ride  it  ?  Oh, 
no !  it  is  to  have  quite  a  different  rider : 
for  in  this  little  town  by  the  river  an 
English  gentleman  and  his  wife  are  wait- 
ing for  guides  and  camels  to  cross  the 
desert  to  Abou  Hammed  ;  and  when  this 
gentleman  sees  the  gentle  white  drom- 
edary, he  thinks  that  nothing  could  be 
more  easy  and  comfortable  for  his  wife's 
riding  on  this  hard  journey ;  and  he  hires 
both  Abdel  Hassan  and  his  camels  to 
cross  the  desert  with  him. 

Six  months   ago   little  Gemila  would 


WHAT    WAS   GEMILA   DOING?  83 

have  been  lost  in  wonder  at  seeing  the 
white  people  ;  but  in  Cairo  she  saw,  every 
day,  people  from  Europe  and  from  Amer- 
ica, and  she  recognizes  them  at  once,  and 
stretches  out  her  little  brown  hand  for 
backsheesh  (a  present),  feeling  pretty 
sure  that  they  will  give  it. 

And  now  there  are  great  preparations 
for  this  desert  journey.  The  women 
have  made  crisp  abreys,  baked  in  the 
sun,  and  plenty  of  kisras  of  dhura  flour. 
New  water-bags  are  made  of  gazelle- 
skins,  and  a  whole  sheep  is  roasted. 
Just  before  they  are  ready  to  start,  the 
women  of  the  village  hurry  into  camp 
with  baskets  of  milk  to  sell.  The  heat 
will  soon  turn  it  sour ;  but  in  that  coun- 
try sour  milk  is  thought  an  excellent 
drink. 

This  is  a  part  of  the  desert  quite  new 
to  Gemila ;  but  her  father  travelled  there 
many  years  ago,  and  knows  it  well.  The 
sand  is  gray,  instead  of  yellow ;  and  there 
are  all  sorts  of  odd  round  stones  strewn 


84  EACH   AND    ALL. 

everywhere,  as  if  some  giants  had  been 
playing  a  game  of  ball,  and  had  neg- 
lected to  put  away  their  playthings.  If 
we  should  break  open  one  of  these  black 
balls,  we  should  find  it  hollow,  and  filled 
with  bright  red  sand ;  though  how  the 
sand  came  there,  or  the  pebbles  either,  I 
am  at  a  loss  to  tell  you. 

Presently  one  of  the  camels  runs  his 
head  into  a  kittar-bush  for  a  mouthful 
of  its  spiny  leaves ;  and  since  you  know 
Manenko's  wait-a-bit  thorn,  I  will  also 
introduce  you  to  this  kittar-bush,  which 
is  its  own  cousin,  only  twice  as  strong, 
and  it  clutches  with  such  a  hold  that  it 
ought  to  have  a  name  meaning,  "stop 
entirely ;  "  and  many  is  the  long  tear  in 
dress  or  turban  that  the  kittar-bushes 
give  them  before  they  reach  the  end  of 
their  journey. 

Gemila  also  makes  the  acquaintance  of 
some  monkeys  that  are  found  one  day, 
poor,  thirsty  creatures,  digging  wells  for 
themselves  in  the  sand  —  only  think  how 


WHAT    WAS    GEMILA    DOING?  85 

wise  they  are ;  and  she  sees  the  tal] 
milkweed  plants,  with  their  pretty,  sil- 
very fish  for  seeds ;  but  old  Achmet  tells 
her  not  to  touch  them,  for  they  are  very 
poisonous,  and  only  the  goats  can  eat 
them  with  safety. 

They  are  coming  now  to  the  land  of 
wild  asses  and  of  guinea-hens.  Who  was 
it  that  had  guinea-hens  for  dinner  when- 
ever there  was  nothing  else  to  be  had  ? 
Do  you  think  we  are  near  Manenko's 
country  ?  And  after  three  weary  weeks 
they  come,  one  beautiful  evening,  again 
in  sight  of  the  river  and  the  villages ;  and 
an  old  sheik  hastens  out  to  meet  them, 
and  says,  "  Salaam  aleikum  "  (Peace  be 
with  you,")  and  welcomes  them  to  his 
hut. 

i  I  said  they  had  reached  the  land  of 
guinea-hens:  it  also  begins  to  be  the 
land  of  round  houses  with  pointed  roofs ; 
but  the  houses  are  of  stone,  and  the  roofs 
only  of  reeds  and  straw.  A  change,  too, 
has  come  in  the  weather,  a  very  remark- 


86  EACH    AND    ALL. 

able  change  for  our  desert  people.  There 
is  going  to  be  a  rainy  season!  When 
the  first  shower  comes,  our  foolish  little 
Gemila  stands  still  in  wonder,  gets  wet 
through,  and  the  next  day  lies  on  her 
little  mat,  and  begins  to  feel  very  ill,  so 
ill  that  her  mother  goes  to  the  fakir  for 
some  medicine. 

Now,  we  all  know  that  medicine  is  dis- 
agreeable enough  to  take,  but  any  one 
of  you  will  take  it  for  the  sake  of  getting 
well ;  and  you  will  be  interested  to  know 
what  Gemila' s  medicine  is,  and  how  she 
takes  it. 

The  old  fakir  listens  to  her  mother's 
account  of  the  child's  illness ;  and  then 
he  takes  down  a  little  board  which  hangs 
beside  his  door,  plasters  it  over  with 
lime,  and  then  writes  upon  it  some  words 
from  the  Koran,  which  is  the  Arab's 
Bible.  When  all  is  finished,  he  washes 
it  off,  plaster,  ink,  and  all,  into  a  gourd 
cup  ;  and  that  is  the  medicine.  Yery 
disagreeable  indeed,  I  think ;  and,  what 


WHAT    WAS   GEMILA   DOING?  87 

is  worse,  I  am  afraid  it  won't  make  her 
well.  I  wish  she  had  one  of  those  bitter 
white  powders  that  Bazunga  gave  to  Ma- 
nenko.  Perhaps  the  English  lady,  who 
always  has  been  kind  to  the  little  girl, 
will  be  able  to  help  her. 

When  the  mother  has  waited  three 
days  for  the  fakir's  medicine  to  cure  her 
sick  little  daughter,  and  each  day  she 
has  grown  worse  instead  of  better,  she 
goes  to  the  tent  outside  the  village, 
where  the  English  people  are  living,  and 
tells  the  "sity,"  as  she  calls  her,  that 
poor  little  Gemila  will  die  if  she  cannot 
have  some  medicine  to  make  her  better. 
And,  only  think,  the  "  sity "  has  some 
of  those  same  bitter  powders,  and  she 
comes  herself  to  give  one  to  the  child, 
and  leaves  another  to  be  taken  next 
day ;  and,  although  it  is  a  very  long  time 
before  Gemila  can  run  and  play  as  usual, 
she  begins  slowly  to  recover ;  and  in  a 
week  or  two  she  is  able  to  sit  by  the 
river,  and  watch   the  boys  floating   on 


88  EACH    AND    ALL. 

their  rafts  of  ambatch  wood,  which  is  a 
very  safe  plaything  in  the  water,  for  it 
is  lighter  than  cork.  And  in  the  early 
morning  she  creeps  out  to  see  the  beauti- 
ful lotus-flowers  flash  open  to  the  sun- 
light. 

One  day  a  white  man's  caravan  comes 
into  the  village  :  there  are  camels  and 
donkeys  and  men  from  the  far  south,  the 
mountain  country  where  the  great  river 
gathers  its  waters.  The  white  man's 
face  is  as  brown  as  an  Arab's,  he  has 
travelled  so  long  in  the  hot  sunshine. 
His  men  have  woolly  hair,  strangely 
plaited  and  matted  together,  and  dressed 
in  such  a  way  as  to  look  like  high  hel- 
mets of  thick  felt.  They  are  smeared 
with  grease,  and  adorned  with  cowrie- 
shells  and  bracelets  of  ivory ;  and  among 
them  is  Zungo,  the  brother  of  Manenko. 
You  remember  a  white  man  came  and 
took  him  on  a  journey ;  and  here  we  find 
him  beside  the  river  Nile,  and  our  little 
Gemila  is  looking  up  at  him,  and  wonder- 


WHAT   WAS   GEMILA   DOING?  89 

ing  if  he  has  a  little  sister  at  home  with 
woolly  hair  like  his  own.  Of  course  she 
never  knew  any  thing  about  Manenko ; 
but  it  happens  that  at  this  place  Zungo's 
master  is  to  leave  him,  or  rather  send 
him  back  to  his  home ;  and  the  English 
gentleman,  who  will  go  southward  next 
month,  is  very  glad  to  engage  him  as  a 
servant  and  interpreter.  And  now  he, 
for  the  first  time  in  his  life,  is  paid  for 
his  services  with  money. 

You  remember  what  the  Bazunga 
paid  him  for  cutting  the  wood  and  mak- 
ing the  fires,  and  afterwards  he  had  a 
yard  of  cloth  a  day  when  he  travelled  as 
interpreter.  Now  the  English  gentleman 
shows  him  a  large  round  silver  piece  of 
money.  A  picture  of  a  lady's  head  is  on 
one  side,  and  some  figures  on  the  other. 
What  it  is  worth  he  don't  know  at  all, 
but  you  and  I  would  call  it  a  dollar. 
When  Zungo  wants  a  name  for  it,  he 
calls  it,  as  the  other  men  do,  "  the  father 
of  buttons ; "  and  when  the  new  master 


90  EACH   AND   ALL. 

promises  to  pay  him  with  just  such  silver 
pieces,  he  soon  learns  that  here  at  Abou 
Hammed  they  will  buy  food  and  clothes, 
and  any  thing  else  that  he  wants,  provided 
only  that  he  has  enough  of  them.  He 
stays  a  month  in  the  village,  for  it  is  not 
best  to  start  until  the  heaviest  rains  are 
over ;  and  he  becomes  good  friends  with 
Gemila  and  Alee,  as  well  as  with  their 
father. 

When  the  day  arrives  for  the  English 
gentleman's  caravan  to  depart  for  the 
south,  little  Gemila,  who  is  now  quite 
well,  and  will  start  with  her  father  to- 
morrow for  her  old  desert  home,  brings 
a  big  bead,  such  as  the  Arabs  call  a 
pigeon's  egg9  and  sends  it  as  a  present 
to  Manenko,  the  little  sister  that  she  has 
never  seen. 


NEW  WORK  FOR  PEN-SE  AND   LIK 

Do  you  remember  that  Pen-se  did  not 
always  live  in  the  boat  on  the  river  ?  It 
was  in  the  tea-country  among  the  hills 
that  she  was  born ;  and  now  she  is  going 
back  again  to  a  place  very  near  her  old 
home ;  for  a  letter  has  come  from  her 
uncle  in  the  Hoo-chow  country,  asking 
her  father  to  come  up  and  help  him  upon 
his  silk-farm;  and  very  soon  the  boat 
and  the  ducks  are  sold  to  his  neighbor 
Ah-foo,  and  Kang-hy  and  his  wife,  with 
their  three  children,  are  on  their  way  to 
the  Hoo-chow  country. 

Even  the  little  girl  can  work  on  the 
silk-farm ;  and  you  will  realize  that  when 
you  see  what  a  silk-farm  is. 

Here  are  rows  and  rows  of  low,  bushy 
mulberry  -  trees ;    and    every   morning, 


92  EACH   AND   ALL. 

while  the  leaves  are  fresh  with  dew,  the 
two  little  girls  and  their  mother  go  out 
with  their  baskets  to  gather  them ;  and 
we  will  follow,  and  see  what  they  do 
next.  We  carry  our  baskets  to  a  bam- 
boo house  with  curtained  windows, 
standing  cool  and  quiet  at  the  farther 
side  of  the  field.  Kang-hy  is  there  be- 
fore us;  and,  when  he  sees  our  fresh 
leaves,  he  opens  the  door  a  little  way, 
and  says,  "  Go  in  carefully :  don't  dis- 
turb them ; "  and  then  he  quickly  shuts 
the  door,  for  fear  of  letting  in  too  much 
light. 

Do  you  think  there  is  a  baby  asleep 
in  there,  that  we  must  be  so  quiet? 
Look  about  you :  there  is  no  baby  to  be 
seen;  but  little  trays,  something  like 
sieves,  are  everywhere;  and  Pen-se  is 
going  from  one  to  another,  and  supply- 
ing each  with  her  fresh  mulberry-leaves ; 
and  presently  all  around  us  rises  a  curi- 
ous little  sound  of  thousands  of  little 
mouths  at  work  munching  and  munch- 


NEW  WORK    FOR   PEN-SE   AND   LIN.       93 

ing.  Peep  into  this  nearest  tray,  and 
look  at  the  hungry  silk-worms  having 
their  breakfast.  Were  there  ever  busier 
or  greedier  eaters  ?  But  when  one  has 
a  great  deal  of  work  to  do,  one  must  eat 
to  get  strength  for  doing  it ;  and  these 
little  worms  have  each  three  hundred 
yards  of  silk  to  spin  before  the  month  is 
out.  So  they  eat  and  grow,  and  grow 
and  eat,  as  busily  as  possible  ;  and  when 
they  get  too  big  for  their  skins,  they 
just  take  them  off,  and  a  new,  soft,  elas- 
tic one  comes  in  place  of  the  old,  and 
gives  them  a  fine  chance  of  growing  and 
growing  more  and  more. 

I  am  sure  you  have  all  seen  the  pret- 
ty chrysalides  that  caterpillars  make  in 
the  autumn.  My  children  know  them 
well  enough;  for  we  had  a  whole  box 
full  last  year,  and  they  peopled  a  but- 
terfly-house in  the  spring.  Sometimes 
the  chrysalides  are  dry  and  horny,  but 
once  in  a  while  you  see  a  silky  one ;  that 
is  the  kind  this  worm  will  make,  a  silky 


94  EACH   AND   ALL. 

chrysalis  of  a  pale  gold  color ;  and  then 
Pen-se  will  help  to  gather  them  up,  and 
her  mother  will  wind  off  the  silk  in 
beautiful,  soft,  flossy  skeins,  and  take  it 
to  market  to  sell. 

Pen-se  likes  this  work  even  better 
than  rowing  the  tanka-boat  on  the  river. 
She  grows  fond  of  the  little  worms.  She 
is  careful  to  clean  out  their  trays  neatly 
every  morning,  and  give  them  the  best 
and  freshest  leaves ;  and  she  longs  to  be 
old  enough  to  wind  off  the  silk  herself. 
She  is  tempted  to  try  it ;  but  her  mother 
says,  "  No,  not  yet."  And  I  am  glad  to 
say  that  in  China  little  girls  do  not 
tease  or  fret.  So  Pen-se  waits ;  and  in 
a  few  days  a  delightful  opportunity 
comes  to  her.  It  is  this:  Out  in  the 
woods,  half  a  mile  from  the  house,  she 
finds  some  wild  silkworms  spinning  their 
webs  on  a  mulberry-tree ;  and  she  marks 
the  place,  and  promises  herself  that  in  a 
few  days,  when  the  chrysalides  are  ready, 
she  will  come  back  and  take  them.     So 


NEW  WORK   FOR   PEN-SE  AND   LIN.       95 

one  day,  a  week  later,  she  runs  to  her 
mother  with  her  little  bamboo  basket 
full  of  wild  cocoons,  and  tells  her  story 
of  finding  them  in  the  woods,  and  timid- 
ly asks,  since  they  are  her  own,  whether 
she  may  try  to  wind  them.  Her  mother 
is  willing ;  and  oh,  what  a  proud,  happy 
little  girl  she  is  when  she  has  a  skein  of 
silk  of  her  own  winding !  not  so  fine  and 
even  as  her  mother's,  to  be  sure,  —  but 
wild  silk  is  never  the  best,  —  and  yet  it 
is  strong  and  useful  for  some  coarser 
weaving;  and,  when  she  has  a  pound, 
she  may  carry  it  to  market  and  sell  it. 

Do  you  wish  you  lived  in  a  country 
where  you  could  find  wild  silk  in  the 
woods  ? 

Pen-se  is  only  a  little  girl,  but  she  has 
a  great  deal  of  hard  work  to  do,  espe- 
cially now  that  her  father  cannot  have 
much  help  from  her  brother  Lin;  for 
Lin  is  going  to  school.  Can't  Pen-se  go 
to  school  too  ?  No,  I  am  sorry  to  say 
that   in   her   country  nobody  thinks  ft 


96  EACH    AND    ALL. 

best  for  little  girls  to  learn  even  reading 
and  writing ;  and,  when  you  think  of  it, 
don't  you  remember  that  neither  Agoo- 
nack,  Manenko,  nor  Gemila  ever  went 
to  school  ?  But  Lin  is  a  boy ;  and  boys 
must  all  learn  at  least  reading  and  writ- 
ing, if  nothing  more. 

Do  you  remember  the  first  day  you 
ever  went  to  school?  If  you  do,  you 
will  like  to  hear  about  Lin's  first  school- 
day. 

His  father  looked  in  the  almanac  to 
see  what  would  be  a  lucky  day  for  a  lit- 
tle boy  to  begin  going  to  school;  and 
when  he  found  in  the  long  list  of  lucky 
days,  "  June  8  is  a  good  day  for  begin- 
ning school,"  he  decided  upon  that ;  and 
early  in  the  morning  he  provided  the 
child  with  all  that  he  will  need  for 
school. 

Do  you  think  he  will  have  a  slate  and 
pencil,  and  a  book  ? 

Oh,  no !  He  carries  two  little  can- 
dles, some  perfumed  sticks,  and  some 


NEW  WORK    FOR   PEN-SE    AND    LIN.       97 

little  papers  of  make-believe  money: 
that  is  all ;  and  walking  beside  his  father, 
he  goes  up  to  the  village  where  the 
schoolhouse  is,  and,  finding  the  teacher 
at  the  door,  Kang-hy  makes  a  low  bow, 
and  presents  his  son.  He  does  not  tell 
the  teacher  Lin's  name ;  for  to-day  the 
boy  will  have  a  new  name  given  him, 
which  will  be  called  his  book-name ;  and 
we  shall  have  to  leave  off  calling  him 
Lin,  and  begin  to  call  him  Li-hoo  in- 
stead.    Isn't  that  funny? 

Now,  what  will  he  do  with  the  things 
he  has  brought?  Do  you  think  they 
are  a  present  for  the  teacher  ?  No ;  for 
the  teacher  leads  the  little  boy  to  a 
table,  where  he  places  the  candles  and 
lights  them,  and  then  shows  the  child 
how  to  burn  his  perfumed  sticks  and  his 
mock  money;  and  all  that  is  done  in 
honor  of  a  great  and  wise  teacher  who 
taught  in  that  country  thousands  of  years 
ago.  As  the  little  boy  is  to  study  from 
the  books  of  that  teacher,  it  is  thought 


98  EACH    AND   ALL. 

right  to  perform  this  service  of  respect 
to  his  memory.  And  if  to  you  and  me 
it  seems  like  nonsense,  we  will  not  laugh 
at  it,  but  only  say,  "  If  he  thinks  it  will 
please  the  wise  and  good  teacher,  let 
him  do  it." 

And  now  the  real  studying  is  to  be- 
gin. Do  you  know  how  many  letters 
there  are  in  the  alphabet  ? 

"  There  are  twenty-six,"  says  little 
Georgie. 

And  do  you  want  to  know  how  many 
letters  there  are  for  this  little  Chinese 
boy  to  learn  in  his  alphabet?  Poor 
child!  I  pity  him,  for  there  are  thirty 
thousand.  But,  long  before  he  has 
learned  them  all,  he  will  be  able  to  read 
common  words  and  stories ;  for  most  of 
the  letters  are  really  whole  words,  not 
spelled  out  as  ours  are,  but  a  sort  of  pic- 
ture-writing. And  soon  he  learns  that 
this  letter  (o)  means  the  sun ;  and  that 
if  it  is  made  just  above  a  straight  line, 
so  (q),  it  means  the  early  morning,  for 


NEW   WORK    FOR   PEN-SE   AND   LIN.      99 

the  sun  is  just  above  the  horizon.  This 
(/m\)  is  a  mountain.  And  some  of  the 
others  are  just  as  simple  and  easy  to 
learn;  but  there  are  many  almost  too 
difficult  to  think  of  trying. 

After  his  reading  and  writing  are  fin- 
ished for  the  day,  he  learns  to  repeat 
this  sentence  from  the  book  of  the  wise 
teacher  who  lived  so  long  ago  :  — 

"  The  portrait  of  a  father  is  a  book 
which  teaches  a  son  his  duties/ ' 

I  think  I  understand  that ;  for  I  know 
some  little  children  who  love  to  play  in 
the  room  where  the  portrait  of  their 
grandfather  hangs,  and  his  pleasant  face 
smiles  down  upon  them,  helping  them  to 
be  good  and  patient  in  their  little  trials, 
and  helpful  to  each  other.  Perhaps  that 
is  what  Li-hoo  feels  when  he  has  learned 
his  sentence,  and  stands  back  to  the 
schoolmaster  (for  that  position  is  consid- 
ered only  proper  and  polite),  and  repeats 
it  slowly  and  carefully,  word  for  word. 

Now  school  is  over  for  the  day,  and 


100  EACH    AND    ALL. 

Li-hoo  turns  into  Lin  again,  and  runs 
home  to  tell  his  wondering  little  sistei 
what  new  things  he  has  learned. 

I  cannot  say  whether  Pen-se  wishes 
that  she,  too,  could  go  to  school.  If  she 
does,  she  never  says  any  thing  about  it ; 
for  she  has  never  heard  of  such  a  thing 
as  girls  going  to  school,  and  doesn't  sup- 
pose it  possible.  But  you  and  I  would 
welcome  her  to  our  school,  if  she  came 
here,  wouldn't  we  ? 

One  day,  at  the  end  of  the  summer, 
her  brother  comes  home  very  happy: 
he  has,  for  the  first  time,  read  a  story 
for  himself,  and  at  night  he  repeats  it 
to  Pen-se ;  and  I  will  repeat  it  for  you, 
that  you  may  see  what  kind  of  stories 
the  Chinese  children  read. 

Here  it  is  :  — 

"  There  was  a  boy  whose  father  was 
so  poor  that  he  could  not  afford  to  send 
him  to  school,  but  was  obliged  to  make 
him  work  all  day  in  the  fields  to  help 
maintain  the  family.      The  lad  was  so 


NEW  WORK    FOR    PEN-SE    AND    LIN.      101 

anxious  to  learn,  that  he  wished  to  give 
up  a  part  of  the  night  to  study ;  but  his 
mother  had  not  the  means  of  supplying 
him  with  a  lamp  for  that  purpose  :  so  he 
brought  home  every  evening  a  glow- 
worm, which,  being  wrapped  in  a  thin 
piece  of  gauze,  and  applied  to  the  lines 
of  a  book,  gave  sufficient  light  to  enable 
him  to  read ;  and  thus  he  acquired  so 
much  knowledge,  that,  in  course  of  time, 
he  became  a  minister  of  state,  and  sup- 
ported his  parents  with  ease  and  com- 
fort in  their  old  age."  Lin  is  so  fond  of 
going  to  school,  that  he  almost  believes 
he  shall  be  like  the  boy  in  this  story ; 
and  he  hopes,  at  any  rate,  to  take  good 
care  of  his  father  and  mother  in  their 
old  age.  That  is  what  every  child  in 
China  means  to  do,  and  I  hope  every 
child  in  our  own  country  too. 

But  we  will  leave  Lin  hard  at  work 
on  his  studies,  and  see  what  the  rest  of 
the  family  are  doing. 

Do  you  know  about  the  wax-makers  ? 


102  EACH   AND    ALL. 

I  think  I  can  hear  Edith  answer,  "  Oh, 
yes,  the  bees ! "  But  I  must  say,  Oh, 
no :  I  mean  the  tiny  brown  wax-insects 
that  cover  themselves,  and  the  tree  on 
which  they  feed,  with  fine  white  wax. 

While  the  women  and  children  have 
been  busy  with  silk- worms,  Kang-hy  has 
gone  every  day  to  help  another  man 
collect  the  wax  from  the  wax-trees ;  and 
now  the  time  has  come  for  the  little 
wax-insects  to  lay  their  very  tiny  eggs ; 
and  these  are  carefully  gathered  and 
packed  in  leaves,  and  must  be  carried  to 
the  hatching-trees,  which  are  miles  and 
miles  away  in  quite  another  part  of  the 
country;  for,  for  some  curious  reason, 
these  little  creatures  thrive  best  during 
their  babyhood  in  one  country,  and 
when  their  wax  -  working  days  begin, 
they  want  to  be  carried  to  another.  So 
the  men,  having  collected  a  great  many 
packages  of  eggs,  start  on  a  two-weeks' 
journey  to  the  hatching-trees.  If  they 
should  travel  in  the  day-time,  the  heat 


NEW  WORK    FOR    PEN-SE    AND    LIN.      103 

of  the  sun  would  hatch  the  eggs  before 
their  time ;  and,  on  that  account,  the 
men  have  chosen  to  make  the  journey 
at  a  time  when  the  moon  is  large,  and 
they  can  see  to  travel  in  the  night ;  and 
for  a  whole  fortnight  they  sleep  by  day, 
and  walk  by  night.  And  pleasant  walks 
they  are,  too,  through  the  beautiful 
green  woods,  where  the  wild  azaleas  and 
camellias  lift  their  fair  white  faces  in  the 
moonlight,  and  the  great  lantern-flies 
flash  among  the  dark  foliage. 

Kang-hy  is  a  very  industrious  man; 
and  just  now  he  is  earning  all  the 
money  he  possibly  can  for  two  reasons ; 
very  important  reasons,  both  of  them, 
as  you  will  see. 

The  first  is,  that  a  little  new  baby-boy 
has  been  born ;  and  the  father  who  has 
four  children  must  work  harder  and  earn 
more  than  the  father  who  has  only  three. 

Now  I  must  tell  you  about  this  little 
baby,  and  how  he  was  welcomed,  —  wel- 
comed with  the  greatest  rejoicings,  be- 


104  EACH    AND   ALL. 

cause  he  was  a  boy ;  and  in  China  they 
are  more  glad  to  have  boys  than  girls. 

When  he  is  a  few  days  old,  the  father 
invites  all  his  friends  to  a  feast,  and,  tak- 
ing the  baby  in  his  arms,  holds  him  up 
before  them  all,  and  gives  him  a  name. 
At  first  he  thought  of  calling  this  child 
Number  Pour,  for  a  number  is  considered 
as  good  as  a  name ;  but  finally  he  de- 
cides upon  Chang-fou;  and  this  becomes 
the  baby's  pet  name,  or  baby- name, 
which  will  last  him  until  he  has  his 
school-name,  just  as  Lin  had  his  a  few 
months  ago.  Then  the  mother  ties  his 
wrists  together  with  a  little  red  string : 
that  is  thought  to  be  the  way  to  make 
him  good  and  obedient;  and  when  he 
grows  big  enough  to  understand,  if  ever 
he  is  naughty,  somebody  will  say  to  him, 
"  Why,  why  !  did  your  mother  forget  to 
bind  your  wrists  ?  "  Isn't  that  a  funny 
thing  to  do  ? 

And  now  you  can  imagine  how  our 
little   Pen-se  will   spend   all   her   spare 


NEW  WORK    FOR    PEN-SE    AND    LIN.      105 

minutes  in  playing  with  the  baby,  and 
carrying  him  out  to  see  the  beautiful 
gold  and  silver  pheasants,  and  the  gay 
rice-birds,  and  the  half-dozen  pretty  lit- 
tle puppies  that  she  feeds  every  day 
with  rice,  and  watches  and  tends  so 
carefully. 

Do  you  know  what  she  will  do  with 
the  puppies  when  they  are  very  plump 
and  fat?  Don't  you  remember  that 
there  were  fat  puppies  for  sale  in  the 
market  of  the  great  city  by  the  river 
where  Pen-se  used  to  live  ?  She  is  really 
fattening  them  to  sell ;  for  she  too,  little 
as  she  is,  must  earn  money,  and  help  her 
father. 

Now  I  must  tell  you  the  second  reason 
why  Kang-hy  wants  to  earn  all  he  can. 
He  has  heard  of  a  wonderful  country  far 
away  over  the  sea,  —  a  country  where 
the  hills  and  the  rivers  are  full  of  gold, 
and  where  white  men  and  women,  such 
as  he  sees  in  the  American  ships  at  Can- 
ton, have  their  homes.     I  am  afraid  that 


106  EACH   AND    ALL. 

some  of  the  things  he  has  heard  are  not 
wholly  true  ;  but  at  least  it  is  quite  cer- 
tain that  a  man  or  a  boy  can  earn  ten 
times  as  much  money  in  that  distant 
California,  as  he  can  in  the  rice-fields  or 
the  silk-farms  of  China. 

Of  course  Kang-hy  cannot  go  himself 
and  leave  his  family  behind  ;  but  Lin  is 
now  almost  fourteen  years  old,  and  he 
might  be  sent,  if  only  enough  money 
could  be  earned  to  pay  his  passage  across 
the  wide  ocean.  It  is  for  that  that  his 
father  works,  and  Pen-se  saves  her  silk- 
money  and  her  puppy-money,  and  the 
mother  makes  little  wax  candles  colored 
red  with  vermilion,  and  carries  them  to 
market  to  sell. 

At  last  they  have  all  together  accu- 
mulated about  ten  dollars ;  and  with  this 
they  go  to  the  mandarin  of  the  village, 
and  ask  him  to  make  arrangements  for 
sending  Lin  to  America.  And  the  man- 
darin goes  to  the  captain  of  the  Ameri- 
jan  ship,  and  shows  him  the  money  and 


NEW  WORK    FOR    PEN-SE    AND    LIN.      107 

the  boy,  and  says,  "  Can  do  ?  No  can 
do?"  And  the  captain  answers,  "No 
can  do ; "  and  poor  Lin  turns  away  dis- 
appointed. But  he  is  to  go,  after  all; 
for  there  is  in  the  city  a  company  of 
merchants  that  has  engaged  a  ship  to 
take  seven  hundred  men  and  boys  who 
want  to  go  to  this  new  country,  and 
they  promise  to  give  Lin  a  place  if  he 
will  pay  the  ten  dollars  now,  and  thirty 
dollars  more  after  he  has  earned  it ;  and 
it  seems  very  easy  to  earn  thirty  dollars 
in  a  country  where  he  will  be  paid  half 
a  dollar  a  day.  At  home  he  only  re- 
ceived a  few  cents. 

But  there  is  one  thing  more  to  be 
attended  to;  his  father  must  write  a 
promise,  that,  if  the  boy  does  not  suc- 
ceed in  paying  the  thirty  dollars,  he  will 
do  it  himself.  That  is  a  hard  promise 
for  Kang-hy  to  give.  It  has  been  so 
difficult  to  earn  ten  dollars,  how  can  he 
ever  earn  thirty  ?  But  nevertheless  he 
makes  the   promise,  and  says,  "  I  will 


108  EACH    AND    ALL. 

rather  sell  my  other  children  to  pay  its 
than  not  keep  my  promise,  now  that  it 
is  made." 

And  so  little  Lin  will  leave  his  father, 
mother,  and  sisters  and  baby-brother, 
and  go  alone  to  a  strange  country, 
where  the  people  speak  a  different  lan- 
guage, do  not  eat  with  chop-sticks,  nor 
wear  braided  tails  of  hair,  where  the 
school-children  do  not  recite  with  their 
backs  to  the  teacher,  and,  more  surpris- 
ing than  all,  where  little  girls,  as  well  as 
boys,  learn  to  read  and  write,  and  a 
great  deal  more  besides. 

I  have  said,  "  where  the  people  speak 
a  different  language;"  but  already  Lin 
has  learned  a  little  of  that  strange  lan- 
guage in  the  odd  talk  called  pigeon- 
English,  which  he  hears  the  American 
sailors  talking  to  the  Chinamen  of  Can- 
ton. They  seem  to  think  that  to  put  ey 
on  the  end  of  a  word,  will  make  it  more 
easily  understood  ;  and  when  they  speak 
to  a  Chinaman,  they  say  findey  instead 


NEW  WORK    FOR    PEN-SE    AND    LIN.      109 

of  find,  and  piecey  instead  of  piece,  and 
catchey  instead  of  catch ;  and  they  have 
other  funny  words,  to  which  they  give 
meanings  of  their  own;  and  since  they 
succeed  in  understanding  each  other,  per- 
haps it  is  very  well.  But  what  should 
you  think  to  hear  your  papa  say, 
"  Catchey  some  chow-chow,  chop-chop/ ' 
when  he  only  meant  to  ask  Bridget  to 
bring  him  some  breakfast  quickly  ? 

This  kind  of  talk  may  do  in  Canton, 
but  I  don't  believe  Lin  will  find  it  very 
useful  in  San  Francisco,  where  he  will 
land  in  a  few  weeks. 

I  can't  tell  you  about  the  voyage  to 
San  Francisco :  I  am  afraid  it  was  very 
uncomfortable.  The  boys  were  crowded 
together,  and  they  felt  homesick  and 
seasick.  But  such  troubles  end  at  last ; 
and  so,  in  time,  comes  the  sunny  morn- 
ing when  they  sail  into  the  beautiful 
harbor  called  the  Golden  Gate ;  and  the 
little  boy  looks  out  at  the  long,  low  hills, 
with  their  light-houses,  and  the  beautiful 


110  EACH    AND    ALL. 

city  lying  before  him  in  the  sunlight; 
and  he  wonders  at  seeing  no  tanka-boats, 
and  no  people  living  in  duck-boats,  as 
there  are  in  his  own  country ;  and  then 
he  has  no  time  to  wonder  any  more,  for 
he  finds  himself  on  land,  and  is  hurried 
along  with  the  crowd  to  the  companies' 
houses,  where  he  will  stay  until  work  is 
found  for  him. 

"  What  kind  of  work  ?  "  do  you  ask  ? 
There  are  many  kinds  of  work  from 
which  to  choose :  there  is  digging  at  the 
gold-mines,  but  that  is  too  hard  for  a 
boy  so  young ;  and  the  work  on  the  new 
railroad  is  also  too  heavy  for  him.  He 
can  go  to  the  great  laundry  to  do  wash- 
ing ;  or,  if  he  prefers,  he  can  go  out  to 
service  with  some  family.  Poor  boy! 
he  is  so  homesick,  that  the  thought  of 
a  family  seems  almost  like  a  home,  and 
he  timidly  suggests  that  he  should  like 
that  best ;  so  he  is  sent  to  the  house  of 
Mr.  Leighton,  who  came  yesterday  to 
the  laundry  to  look  for  a  boy.     When 


NEW  WORK    FOR   PEN-SE    AND    LIN.      Ill 

Mrs.  Leighton  looks  at  him,  she  says, 
"  Oh,  you  are  too  little !  you  are  not 
strong  enough  to  do  the  work."  To 
which  poor  Lin,  only  h  alf  understanding 
her,  answers,  "  Me  muchey  workey,  me 
wash  dish ;  "  and  then  catching  sight  of 
the  baby,  who  lay  crowing  and  kicking 
on  the  floor,  he  added,  thinking  of  his 
own  little  baby-brother  at  home,  "  Me 
playey  baby,  me  jumpey  he." 

So  the  mother's  heart  softens  towards 
him,  and  she  says  that  he  may  come 
and  try.  And  pretty  soon  it  happens 
that  little  baby  Margie  begins  to  delight 
in  Lin  more  than  in  any  other  member 
of  the  household.  He  lets  her  play 
with  his  pig-tail,  and  sings  her  little 
Chinese  songs,  and  talks  to  her  in  the 
funny  language  which  she  thinks  a  per- 
petual joke.  And  at  last,  one  day,  when 
her  mamma  is  trying  to  have  her  photo- 
graph taken  to  send  to  her  far-away 
aunties,  nobody  can  keep  her  still,  until 
Lin,  all  dressed  in  his  best  suit,  stands 


112  EACH    AND    ALL. 

up  and  holds  her  in  his  arms ;  and  it  is 
their  picture  which  you  see  at  the  be- 
ginning of  this  story. 

Lin  was  delighted  when  he  saw  his 
own  picture  with  the  "Melican  baby;" 
and  Mr.  Leighton  gave  him  one  of  them 
to  send  home  to  his  father  and  mother. 
So  he  sat  down  that  evening  after  his 
work  was  done,  and  wrote  the  following 
letter  to  send  to  China  by  the  very 
next  mail.  I  will  turn  it  into  our 
own  language  for  you,  as  the  inter- 
preter did  for  the  white  man  in  Man- 
enko's  land. 

But  first  you  will  be  interested  to  see 
how  Lin  is  writing  his  letter.  When 
you  write  a  letter,  you  begin  at  the  left 
side  of  your  paper ;  but  he  begins  at 
the  right,  and  writes  in  columns,  as  you 
do  sometimes  in  your  writing-books.  It 
would  puzzle  you  and  me  ;  but  his  father 
will  know  how  to  read  it,  and  that  is  the 
most  important  thing,  isn't  it  ? 


NEW  WORK    FOR    PEN-SE    AND    LIN.      113 

My  dear  and  honored  Father  and  Mother, 
*-*  May  the  light  shine  upon  you. 

You  will  see  a  picture  of  your  son  Lin,  hold- 
ing in  his  arms  a  Melican  baby.  She  is  a  pretty 
baby,  like  little  Chang-fou ;  but  in  the  Melican 
country  they  do  not  bind  the  babies'  wrists,  so 
she  is  sometimes  disobedient. 

I  work  every  day,  wash  the  dishes,  sweep, 
take  care  of  the  baby,  and  I  earn  much  money. 
Already  I  pay  ten  dollars  to  the  company-man. 
I  will  be  very  industrious.  You  shall  not  have 
to  pay. 

Last  month  we  celebrated  the  New  Year. 
Three  thousand  Chinamen  walked  in  a  procession 
to  the  Joss-house  ;  and  we  had  feasts,  and  fire- 
works, and  New-Year's  cards.  I  send  nry  cards 
to  you.  (Here  were  enclosed  two  slips  of  red 
paper  printed  with  strange  black  Chinese  letters, 
which  neither  you  nor  I  can  read.) 

We  had  a  New-Year's  week,  not  a  month  as 
at  home.  And  I  went  for  two  days,  but  no 
more  ;  for  I  must  do  my  work. 

We  did  not  have  the  new  almanacs,  as  we  do 
at  home ;  but  I  thought  about  it,  and  wondered 
if  the  Great  Emperor  had  received  his,  with  its 
covers  of  yellow  satin  in  its  beautiful  golden 
case,  and  whether  you  had  bought  yours,  and 
were  looking  into  it  to  see  what  would  be  the 
lucky  day  for  writing  me  a  letter. 


114  EACH   AND    ALL. 

My  master  he  asked  me  one  day  if  I  would 
have  my  hair  cut ;  but  I  told  him  no,  not  for 
twenty  dollars.  Yet  I  should  very  much  like  the 
twenty  dollars. 

When  I  have  paid  the  company,  I  shall  have 
money  to  send  to  you. 

When  this  letter  reaches  you,  I  think  it  must 
be  very  near  little  Chang-fou's  birthday. 

I  wish  I  could  see  you  all.  When  I  have 
earned  plenty  of  Melican  money,  I  shall  come 
home  to  you  again,  and  I  will  always  be  your 
dutiful  and  obedient  son,  Lin. 

This  was  Lin's  letter ;  and  now  we 
will  see  how  it  was  received  in  his 
home. 

It  was  a  pleasant  spring  day  in  the 
Hoo-chow  country,  and  the  first  mul- 
berry-leaves were  coming  out.  Pen-se 
and  her  mother  were  at  work,  as  we 
have  seen  them  before;  but  the  little 
girl  was  complaining  because  her  winter 
dress  made  her  so  warm. 

"  Tut,  tut !  "  said  her  mother,  "  don't 
complain :  you  can't  change  it,  you 
know,  until  the  emperor's  decree  comes 
for  putting  on  spring  clothes." 


NEW  WORK    FOR   PEN-SE    AND   LIN.      115 

And  the  little  girl,  knowing  that  to 
be  true,  tries  to  think  of  something  else^ 
and  forget  her  discomfort.  And  there  is 
a  pleasant  subject  to  think  about ;  for 
to-morrow  will  be  little  Chang  -  fou's 
birthday,  and  he  will  be  one  year  old. 
Already  his  new  cap  and  first  shoes 
have  come  as  a  present  from  his  grand- 
mother, and  preparations  are  making  for 
a  simple  feast  among  the  friends  of  the 
family. 

It  was  very  kind  for  the  grandmother 
to  send  the  cap  and  shoes,  wasn't  it  ? 
But  I  must  tell  you  something  quite 
curious  about  this  present.  It  wasn't 
only  because  she  wanted  to,  that  she 
sent  the  cap  and  shoes,  but  because  in 
China  it  is  thought  quite  necessary  that 
a  grandmother  should  always  give  just 
this  present,  and  no  other,  on  the  little 
grandson's  first  birthday.  Now,  if  she 
had  wanted  to  bring  him  a  rattle  and  a 
jumping-jack,  instead  of  cap  and  shoes, 
she  couldn't  have  done  it:    everybody 


116  EACH    AND    ALL. 

would  have  cried  out  that  it  wasn't  the 
proper  thing;  and  if  she  ventured  to 
ask,  "Why?"  they  would  all  say,  "It 
must  be  so,  because  it  always  has  been 
so."  You  and  I  don't  think  that  is  a 
very  good  reason,  do  we  ?  But  it  is  the 
only  answer  we  shall  get  in  China  to 
many  and  many  of  our  questions.  If 
you  ask,  "  Why  does  the  great  general 
wear  an  embroidered  tiger  *on  his  beau- 
tiful silk  dress  ?  why  does  the  writer  of 
books  wear  one  of  his  finger-nails  two 
inches  long?  and  why  do  the  princes 
have  their  almanacs  covered  with  red 
satin  and  silver,  while  the  emperor's  are 
bound  in  yellow  satin  and  gold?"  to 
each  and  every  question  the  Chinese 
will  answer,  "  It  always  was  so,  and 
therefore  it  will  always  be  so." 

But  we  must  return  to  the  silk-farm 
and  the  baby's  birthday. 

All  the  friends  have  assembled,  and 
little  Chang-fou  is  brought  in  dressed  in 
new  clothes.     His  mother  carries  him, 


NEW  WORK    FOR   PEN-SE    AND    LIN.      117 

and  Pen-se  walks  behind  carrying  a 
round  sieve  in  which  lie  various  things. 
There  are  writing-materials,  —  the  four 
precious  materials,  Kang-hy  calls  them, 
—  there  are  little  money-scales,  books, 
fruits,  pieces  of  gold  and  silver,  a  skein 
of  silk,  and  some  little  twigs  from  a  tea- 
plant. 

Don't  you  wonder  what  is  to  be  done 
with  them  all  ?  See,  the  sieve  is  placed 
on  the  table,  and  the  laughing  baby  is 
seated  in  it  among  all  the  things  of 
which  I  have  just  told  you.  Everybody 
watches  the  little  fellow  to  see  what  he 
will  do ;  for  thev  think  that  what  busi- 
ness  he  is  to  engage  in  when  he  grows 
up  is  to  be  decided  now  by  whichever 
of  all  these  things  he  first  grasps  in  his 
little  fat  hand. 

His  father  would  best  like  to  have 
him  a  wise  man  and  a  writer ;  but  the 
yellow  gloss  of  the  silk  attracts  him 
first,  and,  stretching  out  his  hands  for 
it,  he  lisps,  in  his  own  funny  language, 


118  EACH   AND    ALL. 

"Pretty,  pretty;"  and  everybody  de- 
clares that  he  will  be  a  silk-grower,  like 
his  uncle. 

And  now  the  bowls  of  rice  are  brought 
in,  and  the  guests  sit  around  the  table 
with  their  chop-sticks,  and  sip  their  little 
cups  of  perfumed  rice-wine ;  and  in  the 
midst  of  all  the  festivity,  the  postman 
enters  with  Lin's  letter. 

Kang-hy  is  a  proud  and  happy  man 
when  he  reads  it;  and  the  picture  of 
Lin  with  the  "  Melican  baby  "  in  his  arms 
is  passed  from  hand  to  hand,  and  admired 
by  every  one ;  and  one  neighbor  says  to 
another,  "  It  will  be  well  that  we  send 
our  sons  to  this  great  and  rich  country 
over  the  seas." 

Then  they  all  leave  the  table,  and  go 
out  with  fire-crackers,  to  finish  the  en- 
tertainment with  such  a  display  as  we 
only  expect  on  Fourth  of  July. 

Pen-se  doesn't  care  much  for  the 
fire-crackers:  she  has  heard  and  seen 
them  almost  every  day  since  she  was 


NEW  WORK   FOR   PEN-SE   AND   LIN.      119 

born;  but  she  has  stolen  away  into  a 
corner,  and  laid  her  cheek  against  the 
pretty  face  of  the  "  Melican  baby."  She 
thinks  she  should  love  that  little 
stranger.  Perhaps  she  is  a  little  sister 
toe. 


CAN  THE  LITTLE  BROWN  BABY 
DO  ANYTHING? 

She  is  hardly  more  than  a  baby.  Do 
you  remember  her  little  swinging  bed  in 
the  tree,  and  her  birds  and  flowers  and 
butterflies? 

What  can  such  a  baby  do?  I  am  sure 
she  can't  work. 

Yes,  she  is  a  little  creature ;  but  she 
shall  have  a  little  chapter,  too,  of  her 
own. 

Sometimes  when  we  are  doing  our 
little  work  quietly,  and  not  supposing 
that  anybody  but  those  who  are  nearest 
us  knows  or  cares  or  is  helped  by  it,  we 
find  that  really  we  have  been  doing  a 
service  for  unknown  friends  far  away 
whom  we  have  never  even  seen;    ana 

ISO 


THE    LITTLE    BROWN    BABY.  121 

this   is  what   our  brown  baby  is  going 
to  do. 

She  plays  in  the  forest  just  as  she 
used  to ;  she  gathers  flowers,  and  chases 
butterflies;  but  one  morning,  after  she 
has  been  to  the  cow-tree  with  her  cocoa- 
nut  bowl  to  get  some  milk  for  breakfast, 
and  has  had  her  bath  in  the  stream,  and 
her  roll  on  the  grass,  she  sees  her  mother 
walking  slowly  through  the  wood,  look- 
ing carefully  on  this  side  and  on  that,  to 
find  the  kina-trees,  with  their  yellow 
bark;  and  even  this  little  girl,  who  is 
now  but  five  years  old,  shows  us  that 
she  can  work  as  well  as  play,  and  begins 
to  pull  off  the  curled  bark,  and  bring 
the  bits  to  her  mother  to  see  if  they  are 
of  the  right  kind.  And  at  last,  down  in 
the  hot  valley  she  finds  a  beautiful  ever- 
green-tree, with  fragrant  white  blossoms 
something  like  the  white  lilac ;  and  she 
runs  to  call  her  mother  to  see  the  pretty 
sight.  But  no  sooner  does  the  mother 
look  at  the  beautiful  tree,  than  she  hur- 


122  EACH   AND   ALL. 

ries  back  to  call  the  men,  who  come  with 
their  axes  to  cut  it  down ;  for  it  is  a  true 
kina-tree,  and  will  yield  many  drums  of 
bark. 

And  while  the  men  are  carefully  strip- 
ping the  great  trunk  and  large  boughs, 
the  little  girl  works  busily  at  the  slender 
branches,  and  soon  has  her  basket  full  of 
curly  strips  ready  for  drying. 

"  But,"  you  ask,  "  what  is  all  this  for, 
and  how  is  it  to  be  a  help  to  anybody  ?  " 

Do  you  remember  the  time  when  Ma- 
nenko  had  a  fever,  and  the  Bazunga 
gave  her  a  white  powder?  and  when 
Gemila,  too,  was  ill,  and  the  English  lady 
brought  her  also  the  same  bitter  pow- 
der ?  Where  do  you  suppose  they  got 
that  medicine  ? 

Probably  they  bought  it  at  a  drug- 
gist's in  some  city. 

But  where  did  the  druggist  get  it  ? 

Ah,  we  never  thought  of  that  J 
Where  did  he,  indeed  ? 

Why,  that  bitter  powder  is  made  from 


THE   LITTLE    BROWN    BABY.  123 

fchis  very  bark  that  the  brown  baby  is  so 
carefully  pulling  from  the  boughs ;  and 
her  country  is  the  only  country  in  the 
world  where  it  grows.  Now,  only  think 
what  a  kind  service  she  has  done  for  her 
two  sisters,  Gemila  and  Manenko,  whom 
she  has  never  seen  nor  heard  of. 

She  doesn't  travel,  and  take  long 
journeys,  as  some  of  the  other  children 
do.  She  can  only  do  her  little  work  in 
her  own  home,  and  then  send  it  away  in 
ships  far  over  the  seas  to  distant  coun- 
tries ;  but  when  her  drum  of  kina-bark 
is  taken  to  Arica  for  shipment,  there  is 
another  great  package  of  something 
prettier  than  bark,  that  goes  with  it; 
and  you  will  see,  by  and  by,  to  which  of 
the  seven  sisters  this  will  come. 

There  is  a  pretty  little  squirrel-like 
animal  with  the  softest  of  gray  fur  If 
the  brown  baby  had  any  pets,  or  any 
place  in  which  to  keep  them,  I  am  sure 
she  would  want  one  of  these  little  chin- 
chillas ;  but  no  doubt  it  is  happier  in  its 


124  EACH   AND   ALL. 

free  forest-home,  than  it  would  be  in 
any  little  house,  however  fine,  with 
which  you  or  I  could  provide  it ;  and  as 
for  the  brown  baby,  who  has  no  house 
for  herself,  she,  of  course,  has  none  for 
any  thing  else.  And  yet  the  gentle 
creature  living  in  its  burrow,  and  sit- 
ting at  its  little  doorway  in  the  sun,  is  a 
great  pleasure  and  entertainment  to  the 
child,  whenever  she  climbs  up  the  hill- 
side far  enough  to  come  to  chinchilla- 
town  ;  for  it  is  almost  as  much  of  a  little 
town  as  are  the  prairie-dog  towns  of 
which  you  have  sometimes  heard ;  and, 
in  fact,  the  prairie-dog  is  a  cousin  of  this 
same  little  gray  chinchilla. 

Our  baby  watches  them  with  their 
tails  curled  up  over  their  backs  like 
squirrels',  and  sees  them  scamper  into 
their  underground  houses  when  she 
comes  too  near ;  and  she  is  sorry,  and  so 
am  I,  when  her  father  catches  as  many 
of  them  as  he  can,  that  he  may  pack 
their  pretty  skins  in  great  bundles,  and 


THE   LITTLE   BROWN    BABY.  125 

send  them  away  with  the  drums  of  bark 
to  be  sold. 

Perhaps  some  of  you  will  have  chin- 
chilla muffs  and  caps  made  from  these 
same  little  skins :  so  they  will  be  a  pres- 
ent from  brown-baby  land. 

Do  you  want  to  know  how  all  these 
packages  of  bark  and  fur  are  carried 
down  to  the  ships  at  the  seashore  ? 

They  have  neither  horses  nor  carts,  as 
in  our  country,  for  the  mountain-roads 
are  too  steep  for  such  travel;  but  the 
packages  are  loaded  on  the  backs  of  the 
gentle  Hamas,  who  can  step  lightly  and 
safely  down  the  steepest  paths ;  and  just 
as  our  men  are  ready  to  start  with  their 
loaded  animals,  the  mountain-train  from 
the  silver-mines  comes  into  sight,  wind- 
ing slowly  down  the  narrow  path  along 
the  hillside. 

Did  you  think  I  meant  a  train  of  cars? 
Oh,  no !  it  was  a  train  of  llamas,  with 
their  small,  graceful,  erect  heads,  and 
their  slender  legs.     How  gallantly  their 


126  BACH   AND   ALL, 

leader  moves  in  front,  with  his  gayly- 
embroidered  halter,  and  pretty  little 
streamer  floating  from  his  head !  And 
the  others  all  follow  in  single  file  down 
the  slope,  carrying  their  burdens  so  care- 
fully that  they  scarcely  seem  to  need  the 
care  of  the  drivers,  who  clamber  along 
behind  them.  But,  when  one  poor  tired 
little  animal  suddenly  lies  down  by  the 
roadside,  see  how  quickly  his  Indian 
master  shows  both  love  and  care  for 
him!  He  kneels  beside  him,  pets  and 
caresses  him,  and  comforts  him  with  ten- 
der words,  just  as  Gemila  and  Alee  pet 
their  father's  black  horse;  and  at  last 
the  llama  struggles  again  to  his  feet,  and 
follows  his  companions,  who  are  almost 
out  of  sight.  They  are  all  loaded  with 
silver  from  the  mountain  mines;  and 
when  they  have  left  it  at  the  seaport, 
they  will  carry  back  salt  for  the  moun- 
tain people. 

The  little  fur  and  bark  train  joins  the 
silver  train,  and  all  go  together  down  to 


THE    LITTLE    BROWN    BABY.  127 

the  ships  that  are  waiting  for  their  loads. 
And  the  little  brown  baby  watches  them 
out  of  sight,  and  then  goes  back  to  her 
play  and  her  work,  and  does  not  dream 
that  she  has  sent  any  thing  to  Manenko 
or  to  Gemila,  or  to  any  other  of  those 
far-away,  unknown  sisters. 


CHRISTMAS-TIME   AGAIN    FOR 
LOUISE. 

You  all  remember  the  beautiful  Christ 
mas-time  in  the  happy  home  by  the  river 
Rhine,  and  the  long,  hard  journey  after- 
wards to  the  new  home  in  the  Western 
forest. 

Do  you  want  to  go  with  me  now,  and 
take  a  peep  at  Louise  and  Fritz,  and 
Gretchen  and  little  Hans  ? 

We  left  them  in  a  log  house,  didn't 
we  ?  But  see :  they  have  now  built  a 
larger  and  more  comfortable  one;  not 
like  the  beautiful  old  home  by  the  Rhine, 
but  simple  almost  as  the  log  one,  only  it 
has  more  rooms,  better  fireplaces,  and 
more  convenient  furniture. 

Louise  and  Gretchen  have  a  little  room 
to  themselves ;  and  last  summer  a  morn- 
ing-glory vine   climbed  all  about  their 


CHRISTMAS-TIME    FOR   LOUISE.  129 

window,  and  opened  its  lovely  blossoms 
to  the  morning  sun.  Up  in  that  room 
to-day  Louise  sits  down  by  the  sunny 
window  to  think  for  a  minute.  She  has 
just  made  her  bed,  and  put  her  room  in 
order,  and  in  five  minutes  more  she 
ought  to  be  down  stairs  sweeping  the 
little  sitting-room :  besides,  there  is  an- 
other reason  for  not  stopping,  long ;  for 
this  November  day,  even  if  the  sun  does 
shine,  it  is  not  warm  enough  in  that  fire- 
less  room  for  any  one  to  sit  still  long. 

What  do  you  suppose  she  is  thinking 
about?  What  do  you  begin  to  think 
about  when  November  is  almost  gone, 
and  December  is  coming  ?  "  Christmas, 
Christmas !  "  I  hear  all  the  little  voices 
answering.  Yes,  that  is  what  Louise  is 
thinking  about.  She  is  not  wondering 
what  she  will  have  in  her  stocking,  nor 
what  she  shall  buy  for  papa  and  mamma, 
or  all  the  brothers  and  sisters ;  but  the 
question  has  popped  itself  into  her  head  : 
"  Could  I,  could  I,  make  a  little  Christ- 


130  EACH    AND    ALL. 

mas-tree,  such  as  we  used  to  have  at 
home  by  the  beautiful  river  Khine,  — 
a  Christmas-tree  to  surprise  them  all  ?  " 
And  she  is  sitting  down  for  just  a  minute 
to  think  how  it  would  be  possible  to  do 
this  without  telling  any  one  of  the  fam- 

fly- 

But  to  this  difficult  question  no  an- 
swer presents  itself,  and  she  mustn't 
linger  when  there  is  so  much  work  to 
be  done.  So  with  the  sense  of  a  de- 
lightful secret  in  her  mind,  she  runs 
down  to  sweep  the  sitting-room,  while 
Gretchen  amuses  little  Hans  in  one  cor- 
ner of  the  kitchen,  and  her  good  mother 
puts  the  bread  into  the  pans,  and  sees 
that  the  oven  is  ready  for  baking. 

Sometimes  I  believe  our  best  thoughts 
come  when  we  are  busiest ;  and  I  don't 
wonder  that  Louise  gave  a  little  jump 
for  joy  in  the  midst  of  her  work,  when 
it  suddenly  occurred  to  her  that  Jean- 
nette,  the  little  neighbor  who  had  come 
last   year  to   live  at  the  nearest  farm, 


CHRISTMAS-TIME    FOR    LOUISE.  131 

would  help  her,  and  that  Jeannette's  tall 
brother  Joseph  would  certainly  bring 
them  a  tree  from  the  woods. 

Now,  I  know  that  she  wants  to  put  on 
her  hat,  and  run  over  to  Jeanne tte's 
house  to  ask  her  about  it  at  once ;  but 
she  can't  do  that,  or  who  will  mend  the 
stockings,  and  set  the  dinner-table,  and 
wash  the  dishes,  and  sweep  the  kitchen 
floor  when  all  is  done  ?  So  she  works 
on,  singing  softly  to  herself,  although 
she  hardly  knows  what  she  is  singing 
until  her  mother  says,  "What  makes 
you  so  happy,  dear  ?  and  why  do  you 
sing  the  Christmas  hymn  ?  " 

Louise  laughs,  and  answers,  "Why, 
was  I  singing  the  Christmas  hymn?  I 
didn't  know  it." 

It  is  three  o'clock,  and  at  last  the 
day's  work  is  finished;  and,  "Mother, 
may  I  take  my  sewing,  and  go  to  Jean- 
nette's?" asks  Louise.  And  there  is 
such  a  tone  of  satisfaction  in  the  child's 
words,  that  her  mother  looks  up  at  her? 


132  EACH   AND   ALL. 

glad  to  see  her  so  happy,  and  says, 
"  Certainly." 

Jeannette  lives  in  a  log  house  hardly 
better  than  the  one  in  which  we  left 
Louise  when  you  knew  her  long  ago. 
But  Joseph  has  made  some  comfortable 
benches,  and  one  with  a  very  high  back 
that  stands  always  beside  the  fireplace, 
and  is  called  the  settle.  Into  the  corner 
of  this  settle  cuddle  the  two  little  girls ; 
and  it  isn't  many  minutes  before  Jean- 
ette  is  as  happy  as  Louise  over  the 
delightful  secret. 

Jeannette  has  no  little  brothers  and 
sisters  to  surprise  on  Christmas ;  but  she 
already  loves  Gretchen  and  Fritz  and 
Hans,  and  she  enters  into  the  plan  most 
heartily.  Of  course  Joseph  will  get  the 
tree :  Joseph  will  do  any  thing  for  his 
little  sister ;  and,  if  there  is  time,  he  will 
also  make  some  little  toys  of  wood  to 
put  upon  it.  And  Jeannette  herself  can 
help  in  a  delightful  way,  for  she  can  do 
something  that  few   little   girls  of  my 


CHRISTMAS-TIME   FOR   LOUISE.         133 

acquaintance  knew  how  to.     Shall  I  tell 
you  what  it  is  ? 

Her  father  and  brothers  began  two 
months  ago,  after  their  grain  was  har- 
vested, to  dig  a  cellar  for  the  new  house 
that  they  mean  to  build  in  the  spring. 
In  digging  out  the  earth,  they  came  to  a 
bed  of  red  and  brown  clay,  not  very 
hard,  and  just  sticky  enough  for  mould- 
ing into  shape.  At  first  the  children 
played  with  it  in  a  rough  way,  making 
balls,  and  sometimes  dishes  or  pans ;  but 
one  day  Jeannette  patted  into  shape  a 
little  cat  that  looked  so  much  like  her 
own  cat  Sandwich,  that  all  the  children 
exclaimed  at  it  with  delight ;  and,  lest  it 
should  crumble  to  pieces,  she  set  it  in  a 
warm  place  in  the  chimney-corner,  and 
baked  it  until  it  was  hard.  From  that 
day  Jeannette  spent  all  her  play-time  in 
the  clay-bed ;  and  sometimes  it  was  the 
old  shepherd  dog  who  sat  for  his  picture 
with  a  grave  face,  and  a  tail  that  wanted 
to  wag,  but   wouldn't,   as   if  he   knew 


134  EACH   AND   ALL. 

what  it  was  all  about,  and  was  keep- 
ing still  on  purpose.  Sometimes  it  was 
Bossy,  or  Brindle,  or  Cowslip,  on  their 
way  home  from  pasture;  and  at  last, 
when  her  hands  grew  skilful  with  much 
practice,  she  tried  the  shy  antelopes  that 
would  not  stop  half  a  minute  to  be 
looked  at. 

And  now  Jeannette  is  planning  just 
what  she  will  make  for  each  one;  and 
Louise,  who  has  not  such  skilful  hands 
but  just  as  loving  a  heart,  is  trying  to 
think  what  there  is  that  can  be  made 
without  costing  any  money  at  all. 

There  are  different  kinds  of  presents 
in  the  world,  you  know.  Some  of  them 
have  cost  a  great  deal  of  money ;  and 
some  have  cost  a  great  deal  of  love,  and 
thought,  and  work.  This  last  is  the 
kind  I  like  best  myself,  and  this  is  the 
kind  that  Louise  must  make.  Every 
day  while  she  is  about  her  work,  her 
mind  is  actively  thinking,  thinking  al- 
ways ;  and  first  one  thing  suggests  itself, 
and  then  another. 


CHRISTMAS-TIME    FOR   LOUISE.  135 

"  If  we  had  a  feather  -  duster,  how 
convenient  it  would  be  to  brush  off  the 
ashes !  "  said  her  mother  one  day,  when  a 
fresh  log  of  wood  thrown  on  to  the  fire 
set  the  ashes  flying  even  up  to  the  high 
mantle-shelf;  and  the  little  girl  could 
hardly  help  exclaiming,  "  0  mother !  I 
will  make  you  one  for  Christmas ; "  for 
it  quickly  flashed  into  her  head,  that  the 
yard  was  strewn  with  turkey-feathers, 
and  why  wouldn't  they  make  a  good 
duster  ? 

It  is  easier  to  plan  than  to  execute. 
But  that  same  afternoon  she  picked  up 
all  the  longest  and  best  of  the  feathers, 
—  the  stouter,  stiffer  ones  for  the  middle 
part  of  the  brush,  and  plenty  of  soft, 
downy,  fluffy  ones  for  the  outside.  Jean- 
nette's  brother  Joseph  whittled  out  a 
smooth,  pretty  handle  for  her,  with  a 
notch  near  the  end,  so  that  she  could  tie 
her  feathers  firmly  on ;  and  she  worked 
all  her  spare  time  for  two  days  before 
they  were  tied  on  evenly  and  well ;  and 


136  EACH    AND   ALL. 

even  then  the  ends  stuck  up  clumsily 
around  the  handle,  and  she  couldn't  think 
what  would  make  it  look  any  better. 

Now  somebody  is  going  to  help  her. 
Who  can  it  be  ?  A  little  far-away  sister 
whom  she  has  never  seen. 

Do  you  remember  how  carefully  Pen- 
se  tended  the  silk-worms,  and  gathered 
up  the  cocoons,  and  learned  to  wind  off 
the  silk?  Some  of  that  very  silk  has 
been  woven  into  a  pretty  blue  ribbon, — 
a  ribbon  that  the  kind  cousin  Mr.  Mey- 
er bought  in  New  York,  and  sent  in  a 
letter,  that  Louise  might  have,  as  he 
said,  — 

"  A  bunch  of  blue  ribbons, 
To  tie  up  her  bonnie  brown  hair." 

That  night,  after  Louise  is  in  bed 
and  almost  asleep,  she  suddenly  thinks, 
"Why,  I  will  tie  a  piece  of  my  blue 
ribbon  round  the  ends  of  the  feathers, 
and  that  will  finish  it  off  beautifully ! " 
So,  the  next  day,  the  feather-duster  was 


CHRISTMAS-TIME    FOR   LOUISE.  137 

finished,  —  the  first  present  of  all ;  and 
it  was  marked,  "  Liebe  Mutter  "  ("  Dear 
mother  "),  and  was  hidden  away  in  a  lit- 
tle chest  down  at  Jeannette's  house ;  for 
it  would  spoil  every  thing  to  have  it 
seen  before  the  time. 

But  do  you  think  that  Louise  is  the 
only  one  who  has  remembered  that 
Christmas  is  coming  ? 

If  the  little  girl  had  not  been  so  busy 
herself,  and  so  anxious  to  get  away  into 
some  obscure  corner  to  do  her  work 
unobserved,  she  would  certainly  have 
noticed  that  her  mother  had  a  curious 
way  of  slipping  something  into  a  drawer 
which  she  shut  quickly  when  any  of  the 
children  came  in;  and  she  might  also 
have  wondered  what  Christian  was  scrib- 
bling at  so  busily  at  his  corner  of  the 
table  in  the  evening  ;  but,  when  Christ- 
mas-time is  near,  you  should  not  ask  too 
many  questions,  and  you  should  not  be 
surprised  at  very  mysterious  answers. 

"Dear   Christian,"    said    Louise    one 


138  EACH    AND    ALL. 

day,  when  she  saw  her  brother  prepar- 
ing to  go  to  town  with  a  load  of  wood, 
"  if  mother  can  spare  me,  may  I  go  with 
you  ?  "  Louise  had  an  idea  in  her  head, 
and  she  wanted  very  much  to  get,  in 
the  town,  some  materials  wherewith  to 
carry  it  out;  and  the  chance  to  ride 
there  on  the  load  of  wood  was  delightful. 
Her  mother  was  willing  and  glad  to  have 
her  go,  but  hesitated  a  minute  over  the 
old  worn  hat  and  shabby  little  sack; 
then  suddenly  she  exclaimed,  "Why, 
the  dear  child  shall  wear  my  eider-down 
pelisse." 

Who  remembers  the  bag  of  eider- 
down that  Agoonack's  mother  brought 
to  the  Kudlunahs  in  exchange  for 
needles  and  thread  ?  Didn't  this  warm 
garment  come  from  Agoonack's  land,  or 
from  some  other  land  very  much  like  it  ? 

It  was  a  curious  old  garment,  this 
pelisse.  Perhaps  you  never  heard  of  a 
pelisse  ;  but  I  can  remember,  when  I  was 
a  child,  an  old  lady  who  had  just  such 


CHRISTMAS-TIME    FOR   LOUISE.         139 

a  pelisse  as  this.  It  was  made  of  silk, 
and  wadded  with  eider-down ;  and  it  was 
as  soft  and  warm  and  light  as  a  bird's 
coat  of  feathers.  It  was  a  garment 
like  this  that  Louise's  mother  now  took 
out  from  one  of  those  great  linen-chests 
that  you  remember,  and  she  wrapped  it 
carefully  about  her  little  daughter.  It 
reached  almost  to  her  feet,  and  the 
sleeves  covered  her  hands.  "  But  you 
will  be  all  the  warmer  for  that,"  said  the 
Hebe  Mutter. 

Christian  has  prepared  for  her  a  cosey 
seat  among  the  logs,  and  away  they  go. 
It  is  rather  a  hard  and  uneven  road ;  but 
the  snow  has  improved  it,  and  the  heavy 
runners  of  the  wood-sled  make  smooth, 
broad  tracks  over  the  as  yet  unbroken 
way. 

It  is  a  great  pleasure  to  Louise  to  go 
to  the  town.  When  one  stays  at  home 
day  after  day,  and  week  after  week,  the 
change  of  seeing  a  new  place  is  very 
delightful*  and  Louise  has  rarely  been 


140  EACH    AND   ALL. 

even  to  the  town,  and  only  once  has  she 
taken  a  journey  since  she  first  came  to 
America :  that  was  the  journey  to  New 
York  with  her  father,  when  he  went  on 
business,  and  happened  to  be  just  in 
time  to  welcome  the  cousin  home  from 
his  long,  strange  voyage  on  the  ice- 
island. 

But  what  can  Louise  get  to-day  in 
the  town  without  money  ? 

Perhaps  you  thought  she  was  going 
to  buy  a  little  steam-engine  for  Fritz, 
and  a  wax  doll  for  Gretchen.  Not  at 
all.  You  will  hardly  imagine  what  she 
can  do  with  the  little  scraps  of  black 
kid  and  white  that  she  has  timidly 
begged  of  the  old  shoemaker,  who  was 
about  to  throw  them  away. 

This  old  shoemaker,  with  his  spectacles 
pushed  up  on  his  forehead,  and  his 
leather  apron  tied  round  his  waist,  had 
always  been  kind  to  Louise  ever  since 
her  father  took  her  to  his  shop  last  sum- 
mer to  be  measured  for  a  pair  of  shoes. 


CHRISTMAS-TIME    FOR   LOUISE.  141 

He  had  looked  at  the  little  worn  shoe 
that  she  took  off,  and  had  said  inquir- 
ingly, "That  shoe  is  not  made  in  this 
country  ?  "  —  "  No/'  answered  the  father, 
"  that  shoe  came  from  Germany  ;  "  and 
the  old  man  laid  his  rough  hand  caress- 
ingly over  the  worn  leather,  and  an- 
swered, "  I,  too,  came  from  the  father- 
land ;  but  it  is  now  more  than  fifty  years 
since  I  saw  the  Rhine." 

That  made  them  friends  at  once ;  and 
when  the  little  girl  in  her  long  pelisse 
appeared  to-day  at  his  door,  old  Hans 
Stoker  pushed  back  his  spectacles,  and 
smiled  with  pleasure.  And  in  response 
to  her  timid  question  about  the  scraps 
of  leather,  he  pulled  forward  an  old  box 
full,  and  said  heartily,  "Help  yourself, 
my  little  lady,  help  yourself:  they  are 
all  at  your  service." 

Louise  chose  long,  narrow  strips,  four 
of  them  white,  and  four  black  ;  but 
while  she  was  busy  over  the  box,  old 
Hans  had  opened  the  drawer  under  his 


142  EACH   AND    ALL. 

bench,  and,  after  measuring  and  calcu- 
lating a  minute  over  a  pretty  piece  of 
red  morocco,  he  cut  off  two  or  three 
corners  and  bits  of  that,  and,  tossing 
them  into  the  box,  said,  "They  would 
go  in  to-morrow  at  any  rate :  so  let 
them  go  to-day  instead,  and  take  them 
if  you  like,  my  dear." 

Louise  started  with  pleasure;  and  in 
the  joy  of  her  heart  she  looked  up  in 
the  old  wrinkled  face,  and  decided  to 
tell  him  her  Christmas  secret. 

"I  am  going  to  make  a  ball  for  my 
baby  brother.  It  is  to  be  a  Christmas 
present,  and  I  don  t  want  any  one  to 
know.  It  was  going  to  be  only  black 
and  white,  but  the  red  stripes  will  make 
it  just  lovely.  I  thank  you  so  much  for 
them!" 

The  kind  old  man  was  as  pleased  as  a 
child  would  be  with  the  little  plan ;  and 
he  offered  to  cut  the  leather  for  her  with 
his  knife,  if  she  could  tell  him  how  she 
wanted  it  done  :    so  presently  they  to- 


CHRISTMAS-TIME    FOR   LOUISE.  143 

gether  contrived  a  paper  pattern  of  a 
long  piece  tapering  at  both  ends,  like 
the  pieces  we  sometimes  take  off  in 
peeling  an  orange ;  and  the  shoemaker 
promised  to  cut  them  while  Louise  went 
with  Christian  to  buy  yarn  for  her 
mother.  On  their  return,  he  came  out 
to  the  sled  with  a  neat  little  package  all 
ready  for  her. 

"  What  have  you  bought  of  the  shoe- 
maker ?  "  asked  Christian  as  they  drove 
away,  while  Louise  looked  back  to  nod 
and  smile  at  the  friendly  old  face  in  the 
doorway  of  the  little  shop. 

"I  didn't  buy  any  thing,"  she  an- 
swered, "  but  questions  are  not  good  at 
Christmas  time ; "  and  she  looked  up 
into  his  face,  and  laughed. 

Christian  laughed  too ;  and  then  they 
both  became  so  lost  in  Christmas 
thoughts,  that  neither  of  them  spoke 
for  a  long  time.  Just  before  the  lights 
in  their  own  windows  came  in  sight, 
Louise  said,  "  Don't  tell  anybody  that  I 


144  EACH    AND    ALL. 

went  to  the  shoemaker's."  —  "  Trust  nie 
for  that,"  said  Christian,  stooping  to  kiss 
her  red  lips ;  and  in  another  minute  they 
were  at  the  door. 

Now,  what  do  you  suppose  the  liebe 
Mutter  had  been  doing  a,'l  day  long? 
There  had  been  work  enough,  you  may 
be  sure ;  but  little  Gretchen  was  anxious 
to  fill  her  sister's  place  as  well  as  she 
could,  and  to  save  the  dear  mother  as 
much  work  as  possible ;  and  Hans  had  a 
pile  of  blocks  on  the  kitchen  floor,  and 
built  houses  and  castles  all  the  morning  : 
and  so  it  was  that  the  mother  found  time 
to  take  out  of  the  great  chest  the  pretty 
chinchilla  muff  that  she  had  brought 
with  her  across  the  seas,  because  it  had 
been  a  Christmas  present  years  ago  from 
her  own  dear  mother. 

But  what  is  she  going  to  do  with  the 
muff?  She,  too,  has  a  Christmas  thought ; 
and  her  skilful  fingers  will  obey  that 
thought,  and  make  out  of  the  muff  a 
pretty  chinchilla  cap  for  Louise,  — just 


CHRISTMAS-TIME    FOR    LOUISE.        145 

such  a  cap  as  I  had  when  I  was  a  little 
girl.  Before  the  children  have  come 
home,  it  is  finished,  and  safely  hidden 
away.  So  you  see  a  good  deal  of  Christ- 
mas work  was  accomplished  on  that  day. 

Louise  kept  her  package  of  kid  in  her 
pocket.  It  was  only  when  she  went  up 
to  bed,  and  found  Gretchen  fast  asleep, 
that  she  ventured  to  open  it.  There 
were  four  beautiful  pieces  of  red,  and  as 
many  of  the  black  and  the  white.  It 
wasn't  many  days  before  the  pretty  ball 
was  finished,  and  stuffed  with  lamb's 
wool.  It  was  a  beauty.  Can't  you 
imagine  how  it  looked,  and  how  pleased 
little  Hans  will  be  with  it? 

But  if  I  tell  you  all  beforehand,  you 
won't  enjoy  the  surprise  of  the  tree  half 
so  much.  I  must  leave  a  great  deal  un- 
told, and  take  a  long  leap  over  to  th« 
day  before  Christmas. 

Just  one  thing  I  will  let  you  have  a 
peep  at,  —  a  box  which  arrived  by  ex- 
press at  the  town,  ten  miles  away,  and 


146  EACH   AND   ALL. 

was  brought  over  by  Jeannette's  brother 
Joseph,  who  left  it  down  at  his  house, 
and  came  up  and  told  Louise's  father 
privately,  for  he  imagined  it  might  have 
something  to  do  with  Christmas.  Don't 
you  remember  the  uncles  that  they  left 
in  the  old  home  by  the  Rhine,  —  the  un- 
cles who  wanted  Christian  to  stay  with 
them,  when  his  father  decided  to  go 
away  ?  They  are  good,  kind  uncles,  and 
they  remember  Christmas  time.  Per- 
haps you  will  hear  more  of  that  box 
when  the  right  time  comes. 

The  day  before  Christmas,  —  what  a 
busy  day  that  was  ! 

"May  I  have  the  sitting-room  all  to 
myself,  all  day,  dear  mother?"  asked 
Louise,  early  in  the  morning.  Her 
mother  looked  surprised.  She  had 
guessed  that  the  child  was  making  pres- 
ents of  some  kind,  but  the  attempt  to 
have  a  tree  had  not  entered  into  her 
head.  She  wisely  did  not  say  a  word 
about  it,  although  she  now  felt  quite 
sure  of  her  little  daughter's  plan. 


CHRISTMAS-TIME    FOR   LOUISE.  147 

Jeannette  came  over ;  there  was  a 
mysterious  consultation ;  and  finally  a 
strange  and  bulky  bundle  covered  with 
a  bedquilt  was  hurried  into  the  room, 
and  the  door  was  quickly  closed.  Louise 
came  out  for  a  small  wash-tub  ;  Jean- 
nette carried  in  a  basket  of  bricks  almost 
too  heavy  for  her  to  lift.  If  you  had 
listened  outside  the  door,  you  would 
have  heard  many  "  Oh's  !  "  and  "  Ah's  !  " 
but  at  last  a  little  cry  of  delight,  and, 
"  There  !  it  stands  perfectly  firm.  Isn't 
it  a  beauty  ?  " 

You,  dear  children,  know  just  as  well 
as  I  do,  how  many  mysterious  runnings 
up  and  down  stairs  there  were,  and  slip- 
pings  in  and  out  of  that  door.  But  you 
and  I  can't  come  in  until  the  rest  of  the 
company  do.  We  can  only  look  with 
great  curiosity  at  Louise,  as  she  comes 
out,  about  four  o'clock,  with  flushed 
cheeks  and  smiling  eyes,  locks  the  door, 
and  puts  the  key  in  her  apron-pocket 
with  an  air  that  shows  us  that  her  work 
is  done,  and  well  done  too. 


148  EACH    AND    ALL. 

Coming  to  her  mother,  who  throws 
her  white  apron  over  her  work  as  soon 
as  the  child  approaches,  she  says, 
"  Mother  dear,  when  we  lived  at  home 
by  the  Khine,  we  always  did  something 
at  Christmas  time  to  make  people  poorer 
than  ourselves  happy.  There  is  little 
Maggie  O'Connell  down  at  the  new 
house  in  the  clearing,  and  she  has  neither 
brother  nor  sister  to  help  her  keep  a 
merry  Christmas.  May  we  ask  her  to 
come  and  keep  it  with  us  this  evening  ?  " 

The  mother  smiled  to  see  that  it  was 
the  same  Christmas  spirit,  independent 
of  wealth  or  gifts,  that  shone  in  her  little 
daughter's  face.  A  Christmas  spirit  can 
come  even  without  a  Santa  Claus.  But 
perhaps  Santa  Claus  has  been  here  too. 

So  Louise  pinned  her  shawl  over  her 
head,  and  ran  down  to  the  clearing  for 
Maggie. 

In  Maggie's  house  there  were  Christ- 
mas candles,  but  no  tree  ;  and  no  other 
children  than  the  lonely  little  Maggie, 


CHRISTMAS-TIME    FOR    LOUISE.  149 

whose  two  little  sisters  had  died  of  fever 
a  year  ago.  And  her  mother  blessed 
Louise,  who  had  come  in  a  sister's  place 
to  try  to  make  Christmas  merry  for  her 
child. 

It  was  almost  dark  when  the  two  chil- 
dren reached  the  house,  and  Maggie  was 
left  in  the  kitchen  with  the  little  ones, 
while  Jeannette  and  Louise,  with  an  air 
of  great  importance,  unlocked  the  sit- 
ting-room door,  and  went  in.  It  wasn't 
more  than  two  minutes  before  they  threw 
open  the  door,  and  called  to  the  expect- 
ant company  that  all  was  ready. 

Don't  laugh  at  the  little  tree  standing 
in  a  wash-tub,  and  supported  by  bricks. 
Don't  laugh  at  the  three  lanterns,  — 
common  stable  lanterns,  —  that  are  hung 
among  its  branches  in  an  attempt  to 
illuminate  it.  Don't  laugh  at  any  thing, 
but  think  only  of  all  the  love,  and  the 
hard  work,  and  the  long  planning,  that 
have  gone  into  the  preparation  of  this 
Christmas-tree  ;   and  then  it  will   seem 


150  EACH   AND    ALL. 

beautiful  to  you,  as  it  does  to  me,  and 
did  to  all  that  happy  little  company 
when  they  saw  before  them  the  Christ- 
mas surprise  on  which  those  two  little 
girls  had  employed  themselves  for  the 
last  month. 

There  were  plenty  of  festoons  of 
popped  corn,  and  there  were  little  tufts 
of  white  feathers,  relieving  here  and 
there  the  dark  green  of  the  foliage ; 
but,  strictly  speaking,  it  wrasn't  very 
brilliant;  and,  instead  of  revealing  all 
its  beauties  at  once,  it  disclosed  them 
slowly,  and,  indeed,  some  of  them  could 
only  be  found  and  carefully  taken  off  by 
the  very  same  fingers  that  had  carefully 
tied  them  on. 

You  would  have  laughed  with  pleas- 
ure to  see  all  the  pretty  animals  that 
Jeannette  had  made ;  for  each  member 
of  the  family,  his  or  her  favorite  ani- 
mal. Here  was  old  Major,  the  horse, 
made  in  the  character  of  a  paper-weight ; 
Gretchen's  white  kitty,  and  Fritz's  dog ; 


CHRISTMASTIME    FOR    LOUISE.        151 

and,  to  the  great  surprise  of  Louise,  a 
little  brown  owl  for  her. 

I  haven't  told  you  how  Louise  had 
made  from  pasteboard  a  pretty  chintz- 
covered  armchair  for  her  little  sister's 
doll,  and  knitted  warm  wristers  for  Fritz 
and  Christian. 

Her  father's  present  had  been  the 
hardest  to  make,  or  rather  to  plan,  until 
one  day  her  watchful  ears  caught  the. 
words,  "  There  ought  to  be  some  safe 
place  beyond  the  reach  of  little  Hans 
for  keeping  the  newspapers."  You  see 
newspapers  were  rare  and  precious  in 
that  Western  home. 

Now,  if  you  look  under  that  low  bougb 
of  the  Christmas-tree,  you  will  see  the 
pretty  birch-bark  newspaper-holder,  with 
a  bit  of  the  Pen-se  ribbon  tied  in  to  hang 
it  by ;  and  I  think  you  and  I  can  imagine 
how  pleased  her  father  is  to  see  that  his 
little  girl  has  taken  such  thoughtful  no- 
tice of  his  wishes. 

But  you  know  there  are  other  presents 


152  EACH   AND    ALL. 

besides  those  that  the  children  have 
made.  "We  have  already  heard  of  the 
chinchilla  cap ;  and  for  each  of  the  other 
children  the  good  mother  has  contrived 
to  produce  some  little  treasure  from  her 
old-time  stores.  A  white  apron  with 
pockets  for  Gretchen,  —  she  had  always 
wanted  pockets,  —  new  red  mittens  for 
Fritz,  and  a  picture-book  pasted  on  cloth 
for  Hans.  His  father  had  made  a  pretty 
sled  of  chestnut  wood  for  Fritz ;  and  he 
had  unpacked  treasures  for  all  from  the 
box  that  the  uncles  had  sent  from  the 
Rhineland.  And  suddenly  the  tree  be- 
gan to  produce  fruits  that  Louise  and 
Jeannette  had  not  dreamed  of;  for  both 
father  and  mother  had  entered  heartily 
into  the  fun,  and,  hastily  bringing  out 
treasures  from  their  hiding-places,  tied 
them  on  to  the  tree,  and  as  quickly  took 
them  off  to  distribute  among  the  happy 
children. 

There   was   a  little    writing-desk   for 
Louise.     Peep  into  it,  and  see  its  treas- 


CHRISTMAS-TIME    FOR    LOUISE.         153 

ures,  —  the  ivory-handled  knife  and  pa- 
per-cutter, the  pens  and  the  paper,  — 
every  thing  in  order.  I  am  sure  you 
remember  where  the  ivory  came  from ; 
but  do  you  suppose  that  Louise  knows 
any  thing  about  Manenko,  from  whose 
land  it  came  ?  or  did  the  little  dark- 
skinned  Manenko  dream  that  the  ivory 
tusks  carried  on  her  father's  shoulders 
were  going  to  help  make  a  Christmas 
present  for  a  fair-faced  little  sister  thou- 
sands of  miles  away  ? 

Then  there  were  books,  and  pictures 
too,  just  in  the  right  time,  for  now  they 
have  walls  whereon  to  hang  them :  the 
log  walls  of  last  year  hardly  afforded  a 
place. 

"  It  begins  to  seem  like  our  old  home," 
said  the  mother,  as  she  looked  at  the 
beautiful  old  familiar  picture  from  which 
the  Madonna  and  Child  had  smiled  down 
upon  her  when  she  was  a  little  girl.  It 
had  been  hard  to  part  with  that  when 
they  came  away  from  the  Rhineland ; 


154  EACH   AND    ALL. 

and  now  it  had  been  saved,  and  sent 
back  to  her. 

Presently  Louise  spied  a  little  white 
card  fluttering  at  the  end  of  a  branch ; 
and,  pulling  it  down,  she  read  from  it 
the  verses  that  Christian  had  been  writ- 
ing on  one  of  those  busy  evenings  when 
no  one  asked  the  other,  "  What  are  you 
doing  ?  " 

He  had  ornamented  a  plain  white  card 
with  a  border  of  delicate-colored  lines ; 
written  on  the  back  these  loving  words, 
"  For  my  dear  brothers  and  sisters,"  and 
on  the  other  side  the  following  little 
verses :  — 

c '  We  bear  the  Christmas  message 
Brought  us  so  long  ago. 
Why  have  the  centuries  kept  it  fresh? 
Why  do  we  prize  it  so  ? 

Because  it  is  rich  with  the  gold  of  love 
That  with  bright,  exhaustless  flow, 

From  unfailing  source  in  the  heart  Divine, 
Supplies  our  hearts  below. 


CHRISTMAS-TIME    FOR    LOUISE.         155 

And  it  tells  of  a  tender  human  bond, 

Since  ever  the  world  began, 
For  it  teaches  the  Fatherhood  of  God, 

The  brotherhood  of  man. 

But  how  can  we  carry  the  tidings, 
Make  each  word  as  living  and  true 

To  the  poor,  the  oppressed,  and  the  lonely, 
As  they  are  to  me  and  to  you  ? 

Let  them  shine  in  thought,  in  word,  in  deed, 
As  we  work  out  the  heavenly  plan  ; 

And,  blessed  by  the  Fatherhood  of  God, 
Prove  the  brotherhood  of  man." 

This  Fatherhood  could  not  leave  them 
wherever  they  might  go  ;  and  I  am  glad 
that  they  felt  their  brotherhood  and  sis- 
terhood, even  so  far  away  there  in  the 
Western  world.  It  was  that  that  made 
them  so  happy,  I  think. 

Have  you  all  the  time  forgotten  little 
Maggie,  who  had  come  as  a  guest  to  the 
Christmas-tree  ? 

Weren't  there  any  presents  for  her  ? 
Yes,  indeed  there  were.  Louise  had 
taken   the   last  bit  of  her  blue  ribbon, 


156  EACH    AND    ALL. 

folded  it  in  a  white  paper,  and  written 
upon  it,  "  A  merry  Christmas  for  Mag- 
gie." Jeanne tte  had  run  home  to  look 
over  her  box  of  clay  figures,  and  had 
chosen  the  prettiest  little  cow  among 
them  to  mark  with  Maggie's  name.  And 
the  thoughtful  mother  had  taken  the  last 
new  apron  she  had  finished  for  Louise, 
and  put  it  on  the  tree  for  the  little 
neighbor. 

It  was  a  merry  Christmas  all  round, 
wasn't  it  ?  It  ended  with  music  from 
Christian's  violin,  and  then  a  hearty 
voice  outside  the  window  sung  a  merry 
mountain-song.  That  must  have  been 
Joseph. 

I  wonder  if  they  would  have  been  any 
happier  if  they  had  been  dressed  in  silk 
instead  of  calico,  and  had  had  a  tree 
loaded  with  the  richest  presents. 

Do  you  see  that  the  seven  little  sisters 
are  finding  each  other,  sending  each 
other  presents,  sometimes  even  without 


CHRISTMAS-TIME    FOR    LOUISE.         157 

knowing  it,  and  doing  for  each  other 
many  little  services  such  as  sisters  are 
always  glad  to  do  ? 

Agoonack  has  learned  from  the  Kud- 
lunah,  Manenko  from  the  Bazungu,  that, 
in  this  great  wide  world,  there  are  many 
kinds  of  children,  but  that  one  loving 
Father  takes  care  of  them  all. 

Do  you  see  that  it  has  always  been  a 
white  man  who  has  brought  them  this 
knowledge  of  each  other  ?  It  was  the 
white  captain  that  brought  Agoonack 
to  New  York.  It  was  the  good  Bazungu 
ihat  carried  the  brown  baby's  medicine 
to  the  little  sick  Manenko  ;  and  it  was 
the  English  lady  who  brought  the  sam& 
to  our  poor  little  Arab  Gemila,  who 
would  have  died  if  she  had  taken  noth- 
ing but  the  fakir's  curious  draught. 

It  was  an  American  ship  that  took  the 
silk  that  Pen-se  had  wound  off  the  co- 
coons, and  carried  it  to  the  ribbon- weav- 
ers, who  made  the  blue  ribbon  for  Louise. 

Most  of  you,  dear  children,  who  read 


158  BACH    AND   ALL. 

this  book,  are  children  of  the  white 
man's  part  of  our  Father's  great  family. 
And  yet  I  hope  some  little  dark-faced 
sisters  may  read  it  too.  But  to  us  of 
the  white  race,  some  gifts  have  been 
given  which  as  yet  are  not  shared  by 
our  dark-skinned  sisters. 

You  remember  that  neither  Manenko, 
nor  Gemila,  nor  Pen-se,  nor  Agoonack, 
can  read.  No  schools  for  them,  no  books, 
and  nothing  of  all  the  happiness  that 
comes  to  you  through  books.  Think  of 
it ;  not  only  in  that  respect,  but  in  oth- 
ers besides,  you  have  had  more  and 
greater  gifts  than  they." 

Now  consider  what  you  would  do,  if 
some  day,  when  you  were  at  home  with 
your  brothers  and  sisters,  a  great  boun- 
tiful basket  of  presents  should  come  for 
you,  and  nothing  for  them. 

I  am  sure  I  know  what  would  be  your 
first  thought.  And  if,  in  the  wider  family 
of  the  world,  you  see  yourself  with  gifts 
of  knowledge   or   of  happiness  beyond 


CHRISTMAS- TIME    FOR   LOUISE.         159 

those  of  your  neighbors,  you  will  know 
what  to  do. 

But  do  not  think  that  these  little  sis- 
ters have  done  nothing  for  you. 

Did  not  Gemila's  caravan  carry  the 
gum  ?  Did  not  Agoonack's  father  build 
the  snow-houses  and  kill  the  seals,  with- 
out which  the  white  men  would  have 
died  ?  And  did  not  Manenko's  people 
bring  the  great  tusks  of  ivory  ?  Does  not 
Pen-se  tend  the  silk- worms  carefully  and 
well,  and  so  have  silk  to  make  ribbons 
and  dresses  for  you  and  your  mammas  ? 

They  each  work  faithfully  and  well  in 
their  own  way ;  and  faithful  work,  be  it 
the  work  of  the  wisest  man  or  of  a  little 
child,  is  never  wasted  or  lost. 

They  are  all  helping  each  other,  as 
loving  sisters  should  ;  and  perhaps  some 
day  they  will  meet,  and  will  realize  how 
each  in  her  own  little  way  has  done  some 
service  for  the  others. 


VOCABULARY 


SEVEN    LITTLE    SISTERS 


PART   II 


PRONUNCIATION.— a,  e,  I,  5,  u,  as  in  fate,  mete,  site,  rope,  tube ;  a, 
S,  T,  6,  u,  as  in  hat,  met,  bit,  not,  cut ;  a,  e,  i,  6,  Ii,  as  in  far,  her,  fir,  nor, 
cur  ;  a,  e,  i,  o,  u,  as  in  mental,  travel,  peril,  idol,  foritm  ;  ee,  as  in  feet ;  66. 
as  in  hoot ;  ou,  as  in  bough  ;  66,  as  in  croup  ;  qh,  as  in  chaise. 


■Abdel,  Ab'-del. 
Abreys,  Ab'-ris. 
Abou,  A'-bou. 
Achmet,  Ak'-met. 
Agoonack,  A-goon'-ack. 
Ah  Fou,  Ah'  Fou'. 
Alee,  A '-lee. 
Aleikum,  A.-leek'-66m. 
Ambatch,  Am'-batk.  t 
Arica,  Ar'-e-ca. 
Backsheesh,  Back-sheesh. 
Bruin,  Brii'-m. 
Buzungu,  Boo-zoong'-goo. 
Cairo,  Kl'-r5. 
Cha,  Cha. 
Chilobe,  Che-15-ba'. 
Chang-foo,  Chang'-foo'. 
Chrisalides,  Kris-al'-i-des. 

161 


Dom,  Doom,  a  palm-tree. 
Dhura,  D66'-ra. 
Eider,  I'-der 
El  Bahr,  El'  Bahr'. 
Esquimau,  Es'-ke-m5.  . 
Esquimaux,  Es'-ke-mS. 
Fakir,  Fa-kir'. 
Gretchen,  Gret'-hyen. 
Gemila,  Jem'-e-la. 
Hoo-chow,  H66-chow. 
Henak,  Hen'-ak. 
Igloe,  Ig'-l-oe,  a  hut. 
Jean,  Jeen. 
Jeannette,  Jen-net7. 
Kabobo,  Ka'-bo-bo. 
Kang-hy,  Kang'-hl'. 
Mandarin,  Man-da-reen'. 
Manenko,  Man-enk'-o. 


1 62 


VOCABULARY 


Maunka,  Ma-oonk'  a. 

Puseymut,  P66'-se-m6£t 

Metek,  Me'-tek. 

Salaam,  Sa-1'am'. 

Meyer,  MI'-er. 

Sana,  Sa'-na. 

Mosamela,  Mo-sam'-e 

la. 

Sekomi,  Se-ko'-me. 

Motota,  Mo-to'-ta. 

Sheik,  Sheek. 

Nalegak  Soak,  Na'-le- 

gak  So'-ak. 

Shobo,  Sho'-bo. 

Nannook,  Nan'-nook. 

Sipsu,  Sip'-soo. 

Oomiak,  Oo'-me-ak. 

Sity,  Se'-ty. 

Petele,  Pet'-e-le. 

Tanka,  Tank'-a. 

Pen-se  Pen'-se. 

Tye,  Ti. 

Pelisse,  Pe-leV. 

Tsetse,  Tset'-se,  an  insec 

Pemican,  Pem'-i-can. 

Yambo,  Yam'-bo. 

Poola,  Poo'-la. 

Zungo,  Zoong'-go. 

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